Eastertide 1996 volume v, number 2

Logiaa journal of lutheran theology

L A

Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm

Walther1811–1887

Henry Melchior

Muhlenberg1711–1787

logiaa journal of lutheran theology

Eastertide 1996 volume v, number 2

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The Church-State Relationship and Augustana XVI in the Writings of C. F. W. Walther and S. S. SchmuckerBy James D. Heiser .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5

Liturgical Uniformity in MissouriBy Michael Henrichs..............................................................................................................................................................................................

Grabau and Walther: Theocentric versus Anthropocentric Understanding of Church and MinistryBy Lowell C. Green ................................................................................................................................................................................................

The ELCA: Its Past, Present, and FutureBy David A. Gustafson ..........................................................................................................................................................................................

J. A. O. PreusBy Leigh Jordahl ....................................................................................................................................................................................................

Conversation between Two Lutherans Concerning Church OrganizationBy Herman Fick ....................................................................................................................................................................................................

The Strict LutheransBy W. J. Mann ......................................................................................................................................................................................................

A Call for Manuscripts ..........................................................................................................................................................................................

Ephesians 4:11–12 ReconsideredBy Philip J. Secker ................................................................................................................................................................................................

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R E: Doing Well and Doing Good. By Richard John Neuhaus.Biblical Interpretation: The Only Right Way. By David Kuske.Commentary on Song of Songs. By John F. Brug.The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back. By Peter Jones.Gnosticism and the New Testament. By Pheme Perkins.The Land and the Book: An Introduction to the World of the Bible. By Charles R. Page II and Carl A. Volz.Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard. By Dennis Tamburello.God and Caesar Revisited. Edited by John R. Stephenson.Augustine Today. Edited by Richard John Neuhaus.

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The Laymen’s Movement • The Wittenberg Society • Pieper on Holy Communion • Real Presence in the LiturgyNeo-Baalism • The Real Wiseacres • The Gospel Isn’t Fair • A Synod Worthy of the Name

Reading Mania • On the Public Reading of Scriptures • You May Be a Meta-Growther If . . .The Crucified One Has Risen Indeed • O Lord, Help My Unbelief • Building Marriage and Home

Did You Get Your Convert Last Year?

■ To the Editors:I want to thank you for publishing

L. It is an answer to those of us whohunger for a depth not found in mostBible study classes.

I would also like to suggest a subject.In L Reformation/October

(:), I read the editorials regarding theLWML pledge, an article regardingwomen’s ordination, and an articleregarding Hermann Sasse’s concernwith Calvinism and its effect onLutheranism. Finally there was also anad for the book Luther on Vocation,which I read years ago and plan to pur-chase. These articles combined speak toa question that has bothered me.

What is the role of women in thechurch? What is our calling? What rolesdid women of the Old Testament play inGod’s plan? What role did the women atthe foot of the cross play in the emerg-ing church? If it was just to give money,why were they following Jesus and hisdisciples all over? They could givemoney from home. What was the roleand position of the women mentionedin Paul’s letters? What was the role ofwomen in the early church? Were theynot the backbone of the “social services”that the church in Rome offered to thepeople of that day? What did they do inthe time of Luther? Would the preachingministry, belonging to the men, havebeen received so eagerly without thecontribution of the women? The bookof James ties faith and works together.Are the spoken word and the word inaction separate? Finally, what is the dif-

■ To the Editors:As I wrote in an earlier letter to L, I

profit greatly from your publication.I want to correct the note of credit on

page of Volume IV, Number , fol-lowing the item “On Promise-Making”in the Colloquium Fratrum section.

I am E. L. Eckhardt, but my address is SE th Ct., Tecumseh, Kansas. Myfather, who will celebrate his thbirthday come December , resides inthe Arbor Manor in Fremont, Nebraska.I retired from Christ Lutheran, Topeka,on May of this year.

Keep up the excellent work in yourwelcomed publication.

E. L. EckhardtTecumseh, Kansas

■ To the Editors:It was great to receive your two issues

of L sent as complimentary copies.As I have looked over the journals I amthrilled with them. I have long wantedto receive such a Lutheran publication. Ihave enjoyed several other journals,from Ft. Wayne and St. Louis as anexample, but L is far superior tothem both.

When I last wrote to you it wasbecause Dr. Preus had sent me a copy ofthe book on eschatology. At the time Iwrote, I had not yet heard of his passinginto our Lord’s presence. I became Bob’sfriend in just the past two years as a

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result of serving with him on the newlyformed Alliance of Confessing Evangeli-cals, which will launch its work publiclywith a summit gathering at HarvardUniversity in April . Dr. Preus wasto give a major address. Also, he was tobe the very first Lutheran speaker at thePhiladelphia Conference on ReformedTheology in April (both here in Chicagoas well as in Philadelphia) where I amalso slated to speak. Now, sadly, I amtaking one of his two messages myself,with R. C. Sproul the other. I have felt agreat loss in the past few days andwished that I could have had more theo-logical discussions with my friend wholoved Christ and as a result served hisconfessional Lutheran church so ably.Bob had given me a whole new under-standing of Luther, the Lutheran confessional life, and the value of theReformed learning to listen more totheir Lutheran friends. He modeledintegrity, with genuine reformationalecumenical concern, where we couldlabor together for the cause of thegospel of grace. Since my own back-ground is Baptist he was often amazedat my keen interest in Luther and Lutherstudies and loved to ask me questions,in turn, about my own historical tradi-tions. I think we stretched each other asfriends and associates. I know I grew tolove him profoundly, and in such ashort time.

John H. Armstrong, DirectorReformation & Revival Ministries

Carol Stream, Illinois

LOGIA CORRESPONDENCE AND COLLOQUIUM FRATRUM

We encourage our readers to respond to thematerial they find in L —whether it bein the articles, book reviews, or letters ofother readers. While we cannot print every-thing that is sent, we hope that our Collo-quium Fratrum section will allow for longerresponse/counter-response exchanges,whereas our Correspondence section is aplace for shorter “Letters to the Editors.”

If you wish to respond to something in anissue of L , please do so soon after youreceive an issue. Since L is a quarterlyperiodical, we are often meeting deadlinesfor the subsequent issue about the timeyou receive your current issue. Gettingyour responses in early will help keep themtimely. Send your Correspondence contri-butions to L Correspondence,

Plum St., Mankato, MN , or yourColloquium Fratrum contributions toL Editorial Department, PlumSt., Mankato, MN .

ference between Calvin’s definition ofvocation and Luther’s? Did Calvin’s pre-occupation with work have anything todo with the degrading of “women’s(unpaid for) work” both in the homeand in the church?

It is time for us to stop dwelling onwhat women cannot do in the churchand decide what they can and have beencalled to do, as well as what that callingdoes for the church and how it is relatedto the preaching ministry, the spreadingof the gospel.

I have been troubled by this questionbecause whether you want to believe it ornot I was called to care for a severely dis-abled child who is now an adult. I am stillcalled to this vocation despite the fact thatit also calls me to poverty, to the hatedposition of “welfare mother.”

I realized others also felt this waywhen I suggested that the quilts ourLWML ladies made be hung over theback of pews one Sunday as an offeringto God before we gave them away. No

one wanted to do it, and I realized thatthey did not see quilt making as a serviceto God. Likewise, I wrote a service for aLWML rally in which each guest whobrought a health kit for the ingatheringwould put it in baskets near the altar as agift to God. When I got there the ladieshad changed the service. Two small bas-kets with a couple of kits sat outside thecommunion rail. None of our guestswere ever asked to present their gifts toGod.

We might not have young womenclamoring to be ministers of the word ifwomen had a solid understanding ofwhat their role is in the body of thechurch, if they felt useful, and yes, ifthey felt their tasks were of equal valueto that which men have been called to.Note: since spouse and parent are a dualcalling (both to men and women), thiscannot be called “women’s work.”

Judith A. WillsTwo Harbors, Minnesota

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The Church-State Relationship and Augustana XVI in the Writings of C. F. W. Walther and S. S. Schmucker

J D. H

J D. H is an S.T.M. candidate at Concordia Theological Semi-nary, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

their confessional statements were virtually identical. This studywill examine the views of Schmucker and Walther concerning thechurch-state relationship, or more specifically, the life of theChristian under secular authority. This task will be accomplishedby first comparing the general statements of the two theologians,followed by an examination of their views on a number of practi-cal issues of their day.

CHURCH AND STATE IN THE THEOLOGY OF WALTHER AND SCHMUCKER

At first glance one might not expect to see much differencebetween the views of Schmucker and Walther, since both menclaimed to base their teaching on the Confessions, without anygreat modification. As will be shown below, both theologiansupheld the view that Augustana XVI teaches obedience to thestate in all matters, unless commanded to sin, and both believedthat the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions taught a separa-tion of church and state.

Walther professed to ground his views in the Lutheran symbolswhen defending a careful division of secular authority from thatgiven to the church. For example, in his address to the eighthWestern District Convention on May , , Walther’s centraltask was explaining how to abide by the teachings of the Treatiseon the Power and Primacy of the Pope within the American setting.Of particular concern for Walther was thIS passage:

Especially does it behoove the chief members of the church,the kings and the princes, to have regard for the interests ofthe church and to see to it that errors are removed and con-sciences are healed. God expressly exhorts kings, “Nowtherefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of theearth” (Ps. :). For the first care of kings should be toadvance the glory of God. Wherefore it would be mostshameful for them to use their authority and power for thesupport of idolatry and countless other crimes and for themurder of the saints (Tr, ).

Walther admitted that “it was mainly through the service ofthose God-blessed princes, whom the Lord used as instruments,that the church of the pure confession became firmly rooted andwas allowed to grow” during the years of the Reformation andimmediately following, but he explained that

Princes should indeed be guardians of the church, and theirqueens its wet-nurses — but by no means by taking the gov-

I men of such opposite pointsof view as Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther (–) andSamuel Simon Schmucker (–) became dominant

figures in American Lutheranism during the crucial decades sur-rounding the Civil War. These two men stood as near-polaropposites on almost every theological issue of their day, of whichoriginal sin, baptismal regeneration, confession and absolution,the Lord’s Supper, and confessional subscription are only a fewexamples. The conflict between “Old Lutherans” and “AmericanLutherans” fixed the course of American Lutheranism through-out the following decades along a more confessional path thanhad obtained previously, with the result that some considerWalther “the dominating figure throughout the whole period”

of confessional revival, while Schmucker found the controversyhad “alienated many of his former friends and clouded theevening of his days.” In the words of another author:

If we want to generalize about nineteenth-century Ameri-can Lutheranism, we have to say that it is not so much thestory of the Gettysburg tradition as it is the story of the tri-umph of confessional orthodoxy. This Lutheran “successstory” is in turn preeminently the story of Walther and theConcordia tradition.

Nevertheless, the influence of these two men can be found, par-tially, in the scope of their vision:

Both Schmucker and Walther were dedicated according totheir own lights to the task of building a vital Lutheranismon American soil in accord with the demands of the particu-lar situation here. Both men intended to take seriously whatit meant to be Lutheran. Furthermore, neither man wantedto be parochial, and thus both were interested in the ecu-menical task—even if they saw the task in two radically dif-ferent perspectives.

The “radically different perspectives” of these two men on theissues mentioned above have often been pointed out, and theseissues were, no doubt, the central points in the struggle between“Old Lutherans” and “American Lutherans.” The debate, after all,centered on the worship life of the church, particularly upon themarks of the church, the word and the sacraments. It is also true,however, that many other issues divided the two sides, even when

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the persuasive Word; not control of the state, but freedom tolive in the state, to have a hospitable reception, a place ofrefuge, a lodging-place.

Walther also echoed the Confessions concerning the loyaltydue to the civil authorities. According to Augsburg ConfessionXVI, “Christians are necessarily bound to obey their own magis-trates and laws, save only when commanded to sin; for then theyought to obey God rather than men. Acts ,.” This theme wasrepeated by Walther in a sermon on Peter :–:

What if [the state] uses its powers in behalf of criminals andagainst the pious, does not punish the evildoers and praisethe upright? Should a Christian obey it even then?

I reply: If it commands you to sin, to do something againstyour faith and a good conscience, then you dare not obey it;then it no longer commands in the name of him whose placeit takes; then what Peter said to his government applies whenit ordered him to be silent about the name of Jesus: “Weought to obey God rather than men.” Acts ,. But if it doesnot order you to sin, then obedience is due it, even if it actsunjustly; for it is God’s will that its laws be held sacred evenwhen it is administered by impious people.

Schmucker also believed in a clear division between the twokingdoms, with Christians owing allegiance to the ecclesiasticaland civil authorities. This focus was reflected in early ecumenicalworks such as his Fraternal Appeal to the American Churches.Schmucker’s proposed “United Protestant Confession” appendedto this Fraternal Appeal addressed the Christian’s relationship tocivil government in its tenth article:

God the supreme Lord and king of all the world, hathordained civil magistrates to be under him, over the people,for his own glory and the public good; and to this end hatharmed them with power, for the defense and encouragementof them that do good, and for the punishment of evil-doers.The power of the civil magistrate extendeth to all men, aswell clergy as laity in things temporal; but hath no authorityin things purely spiritual. Christians ought to yield obedi-ence to civil officers and laws of the land: unless they shouldcommand something sinful; in which case it is a duty toobey God rather than man.

Although the precise terminology is not the same, it can beseen that this article contains much in common with Article XVIof the Augsburg Confession. The chapter entitled “Of PoliticalAffairs” in Schmucker’s Lutheran Manual begins by running Arti-cle XVI in parallel columns of Latin and English, with the next

ernance of the church into their hands, transplanting secularforce into the church and bringing it to bear in their shame.In the church they are not strictly speaking princes andprincesses but, the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of thePope rightly says, distinguished members of the church.

One must not misunderstand the passage quoted fromthe Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope in a cae-saro-papist manner, as though Christian government stillhad some inherited natural right to interfere forcibly in theadministration of the church.

Walther cited Luther to defend his contention that it is not theduty of government to repress heresy:

One cannot oppose heresy with force. Another strategy isneeded. This is a battle and a matter different from thosedealt with by the sword. . . .

No matter how much one esteems the piety of a princewho proves himself to be the guardian and patron of thechurch by sincere love and care, the danger is always nearthat he will exceed the proper limit established by God andintroduce secular power into the church — to the unspeak-able harm of souls.

Indeed, Walther declared American religious freedom to beamong the blessings of God:

He has let us enjoy not only the pure milk of the gospelaccording to our Lutheran Confessions but besides this, in ameasure such as was not the case even at the time of theReformation, the freedom to establish this doctrine in lifeand to found truly evangelical and apostolic congregationswhich rule themselves after the norm of God’s Word.

The value of American religious freedom for maintaining aright relationship between church and state is a common themein Walther’s sermons. Walther observed during his Fourth of Julyaddress in :

State and church, the civic and religious life are here separatedfrom one another in such a way that the state does not inquirehow its citizens come to God or what they trust for their sal-vation. . . . I maintain that this religious freedom is one of thebrightest stars in the banner of our new fatherland . . . .

As the church cannot be a state, so also the state cannot bea church. A state is certainly not an institution of God bywhich its citizens are to be led to eternal life.

Again:

What then is the most glorious, the greatest, yes, the onlything that the state can grant the true religion? Not privi-leges, but liberty; not government regulations which enforcebeliefs of religion, but freedom of religion to proclaim thesedoctrines to the whole world; not the protection andspreading of religion with temporal power, but freedom ofreligion to defend itself and to reach out with the weapon of

It is not the duty of government torepress heresy.

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seventeen pages structured as a commentary on this article,clause by clause. In his dogmatics textbook, Elements of PopularTheology, Schmucker cites the entire unaltered text of Article XVIat the head of his chapter on civil government. The clear impli-cation is that the chapter will be a commentary on this article.Indeed, Schmucker’s alterations to Article XVI in his AmericanRescension were not as drastic as those found in other articles.Schmucker insisted that aside from the removal of the condem-natory clauses (as he had done throughout the Augustana) theAmerican Recension deviates from Article XVI only in his removalof the term imperial.

Schmucker’s presentation of this article of faith did not varymuch in the years following the “American Lutheranism” contro-versy, as can be seen in his Evangelical Lutheran Catechism.Chapter XXIV “Of Civil Government” stresses the central doctri-nal points found in the Augustana, as becomes evident from acomparison of its six questions with the text of Article XVI:

Q. Whilst Christians faithfully discharge their obliga-tions to the church, do they not also owe some duties to thecivil government under which they live?

Q. What duties does God enjoin on civil rulers?

Q. May Christians accept civil office?

Q. Ought there to be any connection between churchand state, as in Europe?

Q. What other duties do Christians owe to their civilmagistrates?

Q. Are Romish priests exempted from the jurisdictionof the civil courts, as their standard authors claim?

As found in the other examples, Schmucker emphasized the inde-pendence of the two powers and the obligation owed to the civilauthorities. In answer to question , the catechumen is told,“Yes; they are to regard civil government as a divinely appointedinstitution, whose powers are to be employed in accordance withGod’s word, for the benefit of the people, and whose lawful requi-sitions they are religiously bound to obey.” Again, in response toquestion we read: “No. The Savior says: ‘My kingdom is notof this world’; nor has he authorized civil rulers, as such to exer-cise control over the church.”

Given the above preliminary analysis, therefore, one couldexpect general agreement between Walther and Schmucker on therelationship between church and state to be reflected in their prac-tical application. This, however, does not prove to be the case.

CHURCH AND STATE IN THE THEOLOGICAL PRAXIS OF WALTHER AND SCHMUCKER

The Form of Government: Divinely Ordained?

Although the confessional approach expressed in Schmucker’sElements of Popular Theology and Lutheran Manual might appearsimilar to that of Walther, the author’s views express a clear distinc-tion between himself and the Saxon emigrant theologian. This dif-

ference is clearly delineated in Schmucker’s willingness to esteemone form of government as more pleasing to God than another.Although Schmucker stated, “The Confessors do not pronounceany particular kind of government of divine origin,” he went on todeclare that the “Democratic or Republican form of government . .. is doubtless the most perfect form of government, as it secures inthe highest degree the rights and happiness of all its citizens. Of thisfact the history of our own favored country affords demonstrativeproof.” Schmucker even proposed that “had the divine Saviorprescribed any form, it doubtless would have been the republican;for such is essentially the form of government which he gave to hischurch . . . .” When Schmucker cited “our illustrious fathers” hequoted the Declaration of Independence, not Luther or theLutheran fathers of the Age of Orthodoxy!

For Schmucker, the democratic republic was to be consideredamong the principles defended by the confessors at Augsburg:

It is certainly commendable, that living under a governmentso defective, the confessors should have uttered not a wordinconsistent with the purest principles of republicanism;nay, that they even asserted to the face of the Emperor, theirright to resist such laws as they deemed sinful.

Again:

[T]he seeds of liberty, civil as well as religious, were sown bythe Reformers; and the same principles which led them toprotest against the corruptions, and resist the encroachmentsof the Papal hierarchy, led our fathers to erect the standard ofliberty on these Western shores, exploded the absurd doc-trine of passive obedience to kings, taught the crowned headsof Europe that their subjects have rights, which can no longerbe trampled on with the impunity of the dark ages.

One can see a tension in Schmucker’s thought. Althoughadmitting God did not establish a particular form of govern-ment, nevertheless he dismissed the “passive obedience” given tokings as an “absurd doctrine” and told the reader, in essence,that the American form of government really is the way Jesuswould want it done.

Walther’s views on this matter, however, were quite different.For Walther, it was not the pastor’s place to establish God’s atti-tude toward any particular form of government. As Waltherobserved in his “Fourth of July Address”:

If now you should desire that I blend my voice in the accus-tomed fashion of those who appear before the citizens of

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Schmucker emphasized the indepen-dence of the two powers and the obligation owed to the civil authorities.

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this land on this day; that is to say, should you expect of methat I present a eulogy on the ingenuity of man which haserected the astounding, great, glorious, and richly blessededifice of this republic, then you would, of course, soon bedisappointed in me.

I am a Christian! . . . as a Christian I could never be apriest who would lay the offerings of praise and thanksgiv-ing on altars erected to mortal men . . .

You would still less expect of me that I should point outthe advantage of our republican constitution over themonarchies of our former fatherland . . . . You know that Iam a theologian, a preacher of religion, a servant of thechurch. In considering this union of States today, I am natu-rally going to do so in relation to religion, to Christianity, tothe church.

In his sermon on Peter :–, Walther denounced the “spiritof rebellion and insurrection” in which men

revile heads of government; yes, they pour upon them thevilest mockery and ridicule in words and writing. To be a kingand to be a tyrant, to rule the people and to oppress them areconsidered synonymous. To exterminate all kings and privi-leged groups and grant democratic freedom to all people hasbeen called the goal toward which the world is moving. Whenit has been attained the golden age will have come.

And what is the definition of a republic? A state where onecan do what he wishes. Therefore the laws of the governmentare no longer considered sacred; if one conforms to the law itis only because one still feels himself too weak to oppose thepower of the government. . . .

Yes, it is true that God has not decided whether the fami-lies of a country should unite to form a monarchy in whichone person rules, or an aristocracy, where a group rules, or arepublic in which the people themselves rule throughelected officials. But wherever governmental authority isestablished, it cannot be overthrown by force; it should be heldsacred; God should be honored in his substitute and given thatabsolute obedience which children give their fathers.

Although Walther might personally have preferred a democra-tic republic over other forms of government, he did not presumea divine concurrence with his opinion. In fact, Walther demon-strated an awareness of the danger of Antinomianism inherent indemocracy, to which Schmucker seems to have been oblivious.

The Relationship between the Faith, the Reformation, and Civil Rights

As was noted above, Schmucker professed in Elements of Popu-lar Theology that “the seeds of liberty, civil as well as religious,were sown by the Reformers.” These civil liberties, he believed,had been best exhibited in the American republic. Schmuckerasserted further on in the same work:

Let the American patriot recollect the language of hisfathers, “that all men are created equal,” and have unalien-able rights, among which is “liberty.” Let him remember,

that with these words on their lips, they invoked the blessingof Heaven on their struggle, and that He who rules in theheaven of heavens heard their cry.”

A government’s ability to protect and expand the rights of itscitizens was Schmucker’s primary test of its legitimacy, and a gov-ernment that fails to deliver in this respect may not be able toclaim the loyalty of its citizens: “Under any one of these [various]forms of government the principles of the Reformers would haveled them to remain obedient, if it were administered in such amanner as to secure the rights and promote the happiness of itsmembers.”

This call to patriotic vigilance was specifically applied to thepastoral office in The Christian Pulpit, the Rightful Guardian ofMorals, in Political No Less than in Private Life, when Schmuckercalled upon pastors “to hold up to the view of our rulers and fel-low citizens [their duty] in their political action to recognize theuniversal brotherhood and equality of man in civil rights.”

The alleged link between the Reformation and civil liberties ismaintained throughout Schmucker’s writings. In his Discourse inCommemoration of the Glorious Reformation of the Sixteenth Cen-tury Schmucker pronounced American civil liberties to beamong the fruits of Protestantism: “Such was the glorious Refor-mation of the sixteenth century . . . . The fruits, both civil andreligious, of this Revolution, we, in these United States, mostrichly enjoy.” Roman Catholicism’s “very essence is an admix-ture of civil and religious despotism.”

The last feature of the Reformation to which we shall advertis, that it has delivered the civil government of the countrieswhich embraced it, from papal tyranny, and has given a newimpulse to civil liberty, which has been felt throughout theChristian world.

Since the relative tendencies of Protestantism and Poperyhave been fully developed and attentively studied, no fact inthe philosophy of history is more fully established than thatthe former is intimately allied to civil liberty; and the latterto civil despotism.

How much, how incalculably much the Protestant nationshave gained by the Reformation, is demonstrated by theirmanifest and striking superiority to their Catholic neighboursin every thing relating to civil rights and liberty, to internalimprovements, to domestic purity and happiness . . .

[E]ven the venerable patriot Lafayette was constrained toexclaim to different American citizens, “If the liberties of

Although Walther might personallyhave preferred a democratic republicover other forms of government, hedid not presume a divine concurrence.

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in these last days through his Word and Spirit wither anddry up. It is the revived spirit of Carlstadt.

In short, Christians should avail themselves of the rights giventhem as citizens, but they should not consider such rights intrin-sically “inalienable,” standing higher than the state itself. Thestate stands higher than those rights it may choose to grant orremove. Any effort “to exterminate all kings and privileged

groups and grant democratic freedom to all people” was rejectedby Walther, as was the idea that “To be subject to an unjust gov-ernment because it is of God and endure oppression at its handswithout rebelling is now deemed weakness, cowardice unworthyof a free man, yes insanity.” Schmucker’s priorities were pre-cisely the reverse of Walther’s in this regard, and this brings us tothe next point.

Christians and Revolution

The views of both Walther and Schmucker were closely tied totheir assessment of the primacy of civil rights. Walther rejectedhis generation’s revolutionary spirit in the strongest terms:

God’s Word tells us that one of the things which willannounce the end of the world is that after a great fall fromthe faith there will be rebellion even against civil govern-ment, the sanctity of governmental authority will be deniedand everywhere there will be bloody persecution. . . . If wecompare the state of affairs in our day with this picture, wecan see that also this prediction is being literally fulfilledbefore our very eyes.

Walther viewed the driving for “equality” and “humanrights” as indivisible from revolution against divinely estab-lished authority. Because people consider man to be the sourceinstituting government,

Many say: By nature every person is free, subject to noone, his own lord. It is only by common consent, theyclaim, that a few rule, the rest let themselves be ruled, thata few govern, the rest are subject to them. Subjects, there-fore, always have the right to overthrow the government.The right of revolution is a holy inalienable right of allnations. . . .

This, however, is a great ruinous error. God is not a Godof confusion but order. God did not create two things to beon the same level. Throughout the entire world we find an

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your country are destroyed, it can only be by the popishclergy;” it becomes us to lend respectful attention to thissubject, and in a suitable Christian manner, endeavour toresist the encroachments of the enemy.

As was the case concerning the form of government, Walther’sviews on civil rights were rather different from those held bySchmucker. Unquestionably Walther upheld the Christian’s useof his civil rights. In fact, he supported Protestant-run newspa-pers to counter “the other political papers in the west [that] areopenly organs of anti-Christianity” in order “to provide in theupstanding families a Christian outlook on current events and toeffect a conscientious use of civil rights and privileges among thepeople.” While opposing any attempt by the church to turn tothe state in search of “hand-outs” or other support (for fulfillingher obligation to care for the poor, for example), such was notthe case for individual Christians as citizens:

That which is not a duty or a right of Christians, but onlyduties and rights of citizens, is something else again. There-fore we read that the apostle Paul as citizen appealed to Cae-sar (Acts :) and appealed to his full citizen’s rights (Acts:–).

At the same time, however, Walther denounced the post-CivilWar Missouri constitution for containing “a notorious declara-tion of inherent, inalienable human rights.” This opposition to“inalienable human rights” and particularly the idea of equalitywas Walther’s first point of attack in his four sermons on commu-nism and socialism:

The first thing we have to consider is:. It is a fact that men are not equal.Throughout the creation every thing differs from every-

thing else. God is accordingly not an equalizer, but onewho creates dissimilar things. Man cannot, to save his life,make two things equal. The principle that all things shallbe made alike is not founded in nature. The same is evi-dent in man. . . . It would therefore be altogether unnat-ural to place human society in such a condition that allwould be equal.

Walther opposed a similar “spirit” which he believed was atwork in the American Civil War, a spirit “possessing and poison-ing increasingly more hearts, which wrings from us anew the cryof the blessed martyr Polycarp: ‘God, what times hast Thouallowed me to experience!’” Walther continued: “And shouldwe say, what is this spirit for?— It is the spirit of the first FrenchRevolution, whose motto was: ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ . . .these heralds explicitly declare: ‘What are a million men againstan idea!’” Walther discerned echoes of Münzer and the “TwelveArticles of the Schwabian Peasants” in this quest for “Liberty,Equality, Fraternity,” and

this spirit, which confuses Christian liberty with civil equal-ity, is blowing over the entire country as a hot wind bywhich even many of the few plants which Christ had planted

Walther denounced the post-Civil WarMissouri constitution for containing“a notorious declaration of inherent,inalienable human rights.”

nb

of our government which we placed over ourselves, to makeout a false tax return, or to transgress in a business deal itslaws confirmed by God.

Schmucker took a dim view of honoring authority when hebelieved civil rights to be at stake. He attempted to tie his view tothat of the Reformers, declaring that “Under any of these [vari-ous] forms of government the principles of the Reformers wouldhave led them to remain obedient, if it were administered in such amanner as to secure the rights and promote the happiness of itsmembers.” Considering Luther’s well-documented reaction tothe Peasants Revolt in , it is hard to include Luther amongwhatever “Reformers” Schmucker had in mind. After all, while itis certainly true that Luther chastised the rulers, and evendeclared that they deserved to face revolt because of their sins,nevertheless he steadily maintained that to engage in such a revoltwas sinful.

Schmucker, however, made no effort to specify preciselywhom he had in mind. Instead, he continued by asserting that“it is a principle maintained by the ablest writers on politicalphilosophy, that resistance to any existing government becomesproper and a duty, only when the grievances actually endured orwith certainty foreseen, outweigh the hazards of anarchy andviolence always attendant on revolutions.” Schmucker went onto declare that

The Confessors inculcate the justice of revolution in thosegovernments which fail to accomplish the just end of theirestablishment.

But if rulers transgress their duty, and require aught that isimproper, we are commanded to obey God rather than man.. . . Combination among the oppressed is necessary to a suc-cessful resistance of existing governments, and thereforeproper. And combination of the oppressed to resist theiroppressors is rebellion; its successful termination, revolution.

Thus to withdraw and renounce his allegiance to anygovernment, by which he is wantonly and seriouslyoppressed, is doubtless the indefeasible right of man; but itis based in the laws of nature, not in the provisions of theConstitution . . . .

Here one finds a far different approach from Walther’s, eventhough some of the terminology is similar. Rebellion is justifiedin the face of oppression, when the authorities require that whichis “improper” and when the benefits “outweigh the hazards.”

endless gradation, in which one thing is subordinate toanother. The whole creation is not a disconnected mass ofthings and beings, but an orderly kingdom divided intocountless provinces. . . . Everywhere [God] has his substi-tutes clothed with his majesty who rule and govern.

The focus was the same as in Walther’s argument againstsocialism: revolution against authority is built upon the falsepremise that creatures are meant to be equal. They are not equal,and attempts to create a false equality lead to bloodshed andchaos and the violation of God’s law because one is fightingagainst the very order of creation. Even if a government is impi-ous and oppressive, a Christian must be obedient. Only a com-mand to sin may (and then must) be disobeyed. Any other act ofrebellion, no matter how noble the cause seems to the “oldAdam,” is a sin so serious that Walther links it to the “apostasy” ofhis age. As Walther explained,

[I]f it does not order you to sin, then obedience is due it,even if it acts unjustly; for it is God’s will that its laws be heldsacred even when it is administered by impious people.

With absolute clarity this says that Christians are to obeynot only a good and gentle, but also a false and malicious,not only a pious but also a godless, not only an upright andfair but also an unjust and unfair government; for con-science’s sake toward God they are to endure all injusticewithout resisting by force.

Walther clung tenaciously to these fundamental principleseven when threatened during the Civil War. As Walther declaredto J. C. W. Lindemann,

We are in grave danger because we do not go along with theRepublican mob, this revolutionary party which has nowhoisted the banner of loyalty with unspeakable hypocrisy.We simply rely on the Word —”Be subject to the govern-ment which has power over you”— not right, for wherewould we be then?

He expressed this sentiment even more bluntly in a letter to Gus-tavus Seyffarth dated June , : “Whatever our administrationdoes in this war, we subject ourselves to that, according toRomans ,.”

Walther did not draw his definition of rebellion narrowly,either. In a sermon on the text “Render therefore unto Caesar thethings which are Caesar’s,” (Mt :) he included any avoidanceof civil laws to be an act of rebellion:

Our government was instituted by the will of the majority ofall the people and is answerable to it. Yet it is God’s ordi-nance and servant. God has given the sword of protectionand vengeance, the scales of justice, into its hands. Weshould consider its laws holy and inviolable, its commandsGod’s commands, its laws God’s laws. . . . Yes, we should beready to sacrifice our very life if our government demands itto preserve the common good, to go in battle against thecountry’s enemy. It is no small sin to transgress a command

Walther viewed the driving for “equal-ity” and “human rights” as indivisiblefrom revolution against divinelyestablished authority.

nb

to God’s order was just as sinful, godless and damnable asRoman slavery at the time of the apostles. Whatever theapostles did not condemn in Roman slavery, we may notcondemn if we wish to be Christians. But anything of a sin-ful nature connected with American slavery we may notexcuse, gloss over, or justify.

It has been observed by Walther’s defenders that the Mis-sourian aligned himself with the South during the Civil War. Thisloyalty was not based on any love of slavery, but was rooted in twobiblical principles: () being subject to those in authority (Rom), and () the conviction that the Scriptures did not condemnslavery, and thus Christians dared not go beyond God’s Word. Asone author has explained,

Walther in his personal convictions indeed sympathizedwith the southern States. He had two reasons. In the firstplace, he and many of the fathers of our church were infavor of states’ rights. . . . In the second place, while notfavoring slavery, Walther took the position that slavery initself was not against the Word of God . . . and he was hor-rified to read in so many church papers misinterpretationsof the Bible, especially of St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s letters.But he never brought his political convictions to bear onthe church and church conditions.

Walther felt a great loyalty to the State of Missouri, declaringto Theodore Buenger in , “I am a Missourian and thereforewill never be moved to separate my fortune from that of mystate unless I am forced. This state has so far protected me in lifeand property, so in the time of need I will not become unfaith-ful to it.” This loyalty placed Walther in considerable danger,as can be seen in another letter from the same year to Pastor J.M. Buehler:

Since it seems that the battlefield would be fixed here underthe very windows of the college (even Commander Boern-stein, lying in the Marine hospital, putting his hands on acannon, swore to shoot up this secessionist nest, as he lovesto call our college), and since the governor presented aprospect of a military bill in our legislature, we have felt con-science-bound to close down the institution till furthernotice . . .

If Walther’s views on secession were still unclear, he went onto note:

We have declared that if a state secedes from the Union, nat-urally the individual citizen will not revolt but will either

-

While Walther appealed to Scripture, Schmucker defended this“indefeasible right” on the basis of natural law and political phi-losophy. The ultimate decision whether a government stands orfalls Schmucker declared to rest in the hands of the people, whileWalther proclaimed this power belongs to God alone. In conclu-sion, then, it is clear that the views of these two men on the rela-tionship between the governing authorities and civil rights wereintimately linked to their beliefs concerning the right of the peo-ple to revolt. There is little hope for reconciling these two views,for they approach the question of authority from two fundamen-tally different perspectives.

Slavery and Abolition

The interrelated issues of slavery and abolitionism are perhapsthe two where the contrast between the two theologians is themost striking. For Schmucker, slavery was an “abstract injusticeand criminality in the sight of God . . . an evil moral, social andpolitical, that no republican government can consistently cher-ish — that no Christian nation can rest quiet under itsinfluence.” Schmucker was an abolitionist who became a slave-holder by marriage, although he did speak “of his slaves as ser-vants, treated them kindly, provided them with spiritual ministry,and arranged for their elementary education.”

Walther, on the other hand, once commented concerningChristian liberty: “For whoever is free of God becomes a slave ofhis own impulses, but whoever is a servant of God is a free maneven if he were the slave child of a negro.” In essence, to be aChristian makes a man free in a way beyond any earthly freedom,and it is a freedom that no one can take away. Walther main-tained that

abolitionism, which holds and declares slavery as an essen-tially sinful relationship and every master of a slave therebyas a malefactor and therefore wants to abolish the formerunder all circumstances, is a child of unbelief and its unfold-ing, rationalism, deistic philanthropism, pantheism, materi-alism, atheism, and a brother of modern socialism, Jacobin-ism, and communism.

Walther’s rejection of abolitionism was not rooted in a pro-slavery mentality, as some have charged, but in his hatred ofrebellion of all kinds. Because, he believed, there was nothingin the New Testament condemning slavery, and since no onewas forced against conscience to own slaves, there could be nojustification for the tactics of the abolitionists. As Waltherexplained in :

What God permits the Christians in the New Testament todo and does not command them to put aside, but rather tocontrol, cannot be sinful in itself. That is what God doeswith regard to slavery, which is nothing else than (to put itin Melanchthon’s words) the legal deprivation of the capac-ity to possess property and to determine for oneself the typeof occupation which one wishes to follow and the right tolive in a place chosen by oneself.

Insofar as this was ordered by law in America, Americanslavery was not sinful. But whatever was added to it contrary

[For Schmucker] rebellion is justifiedin the face of oppression.

nb

. We have in mind here the phenomena of the Lutheran faith inAmerica, not the more narrow category of liberal “AmericanLutheranism” as represented by the Definite Platform and the AmericanRecension of the Augsburg Confession. This will be the applicationthroughout this article, with exceptions designated by quotation marks.

. O. W. Heick, and J. L. Neve, A History of Christian Thought, vols. (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, ), : .

. Abdel Ross Wentz, The Lutheran Church in American History(Philadelphia: United Lutheran Publication House, ), .

. Leigh D. Jordahl, “Schmucker and Walther: A Study of Christ-ian Response to American Culture,” in The Future of the AmericanChurch, ed. Philip J. Hefner (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, ), .

. Jordahl, .. C. F. W. Walther, “Church and State,” trans. Robert Ernst

NOTES

It is worth noting, in conclusion, that Schmucker’s life wasplaced in some danger during the Civil War when Confederatetroops overran the Schmucker home during the battle of Gettys-burg. Cannon fire had been turned on his home, seminaryrecords were damaged, and a portion of Schmucker’s personallibrary and furniture was destroyed. Schmucker had already fledthe area, however, having been warned that Confederate soldiersplanned to “arrest” him.

CONCLUSION

It can be seen that the views of both men with regard to slaveryand abolitionism were consistent with their views on otherchurch-state issues. Fundamentally, the difference between thesetwo theologians centered on their view of civil rights and the rela-tionship of such rights to the established order. These views, inturn, were shaped by the status attributed to the republican formof government. For Walther, although he undeniably praised itsbenefits, the republic was seen as one option among many and itsrise and fall were in the hands of the Creator. Schmucker’s viewsin this regard displayed a greater tension, in which one mightspeak of the republic knowing a particular “divine favor,” but not“divine mandate.”

Throughout a survey of Schmucker’s work one is struck byhis adoption of the Weltanschauung of nineteenth-centuryAmerican liberalism. A great proportion of the treatment ofpolitical affairs in Elements of Popular Theology is applicableonly within the immediate setting of his generation’s debateover the intent of the United States Constitution and the Decla-ration of Independence. The result of this approach is that suchmaterials rapidly lose their value outside of their immediate cul-tural and historical context. By narrowing his vision of theReformers to the narrow context of the American republic,Schmucker lost his ability to address himself to the churchcatholic. This may be considered a symptom of Schmucker’sgreater failure to equal Walther’s success in “building a vitalLutheranism on American soil in accord with the demands ofthe particular situation here”— his focus was simply too nar-row to meet the “ecumenical task.”

Walther, however, by consciously repristinating aspects of theteachings of Luther and the Lutheran Confessions concerningthe church-state relationship, particularly the emphasis on theauthority of the state, aligned himself with a strain of teachingdeeply rooted in the Lutheran dogmatic tradition. Walther’s exe-gesis of certain key passages (such as Romans and Peter )and his ability to explain the teachings of the Lutheran symbolswithin the American context allow Lutherans easier access totheir church’s traditions, whereas Schmucker’s views on a widevariety of issues simply stray too far from the historic Lutherannorm. LOGIA

emigrate or will subject himself to the seceding state govern-ment, according to the Bible passage: “Be obedient to thepower that has authority over you.” It does not say “Has theright over you.”

Schmucker, however, saw slavery as the great “exception” toAmerican civil rights, a phenomenon that he believed demandeda solution. Slavery was “a reproach to our political system, and aviolation of the rights of ‘equal’ man!” This conclusion ledSchmucker to become a moderate advocate of two proposedsolutions: slave resettlement in Africa and abolitionism.Schmucker’s support for resettlement, however, was quite mild.Although an “active member” of the American ColonizationSociety who “always regarded colonization as entitled a place,not indeed as in itself a remedy for American slavery, but as asource of much good for Africa,” Schmucker had his doubtsconcerning the practicality of the concept. Schmucker believedthat “African colonization” neither “can or will be extended sofar as to remove entirely the negro from our land.”

Whilst voluntary colonization, in Africa and elsewhere,ought to be encouraged; it seems almost certain that a por-tion of our coloured population will always remainamongst us. Colonization, moreover, if conducted with anyview to the entire removal of our slave population, willrequire a previous system of legislation for the manumis-sion of the whole mass of slaves. This ought to be a simulta-neous step. But when laws for the abolition of slavery shallhave been enacted, the inadequacy of foreign colonizationwill appear as clear as demonstration. Many will moreoverbe unwilling to remove across the Atlantic, to an unknownland; and coercion would be unjust.

The primary aim for Schmucker was the abolition of slavery,leaving the option of colonization up to those who had beenfreed. Schmucker was by no means as extreme as other aboli-tionists, however, observing that “our Southern fellow-citizensare also often unjustly censured; for not only had the presentgeneration no agency in introducing slavery into the land; themajority of them profess themselves favourable to emancipationin general.” In rebuttal to his fellow abolitionists Schmuckerobserved that “this great work has difficulties more formidablethan some Christians in non-slaveholding states suppose.”Indeed, the involvement of the North in the import of slavesmeant that “the North comes in for a large portion of the guilt.”In summary: “But in this noble enterprise there should be as lit-tle crimination as possible.” Even as the Civil War loomed,Schmucker took a moderate approach to the treatment of slave-holding states, urging teamwork in this task rather than division.

-

Hope Publicity Bureau, ), –.. “Vorwort der Redaction . . .” Der Lutheraner ( Sept. ),

in Moving Frontiers, .. “Vorwort der Redaction . . .” Der Lutheraner ( Sept. ),

. [Passage not included in Moving Frontiers translation.]. “Vorwort der Redaction . . .” Der Lutheraner ( Sept. ),

in Moving Frontiers, .. Walther, Standard Epistles, .. Ibid., .. Ibid., .. Ibid., .. Letters of C. F. W. Walther: A Selection, ed. and trans. Carl S.

Meyer (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, ), .. Correspondence of C. F. W. Walther, ed. and trans. Roy A.

Suelflow (St. Louis: Concordia Seminary, ), .. C. F. W. Walther, Standard Gospels (Fort Wayne: Concordia

Theological Seminary Printshop, n.d.), .. Schmucker, Elements of Popular Theology, . Italics added.. For example: “Third, you say that the rulers are wicked and

intolerable, for they will not allow us to have the gospel; they oppress ustoo hard with the burdens they lay on our property, and they are ruin-ing us in body and soul. I answer: The fact that the rulers are wickedand unjust does not excuse disorder and rebellion, for the punishing ofwickedness is not the responsibility of everyone, but of the worldlyrulers who bear the sword.” Martin Luther, “Admonition to Peace: AReply to the Twelve Articles of the Peasants in Swabia,” AE : .

. Schmucker, Elements of Popular Theology, –, .. “Dr. Schmucker’s Letter” from The Colonization Herald, ,

contained in the Corpus of American Lutheranism, Reel , Unit X.. Virginia did not allow their manumission—Schmucker freed

several slaves the next year when he moved to Pennsylvania. For anextensive treatment of this incident, see Paul P. Kuenning, “AmericanLutheran Pietism, Activist and Abolitionist” (Ph.D. diss., MarquetteUniversity, ), –.

. Wentz, Pioneer in Christian Unity, .. Walther, Selected Letters, .. “Vorwort,” Lehre und Wehre (Feb. ): , trans. in Mov-

ing Frontiers, .. See Paul P. Keunning, The Rise and Fall of American Lutheran

Pietism (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, ), .. Aug. R. Suelflow, “Walther the American,” in C. F. W. Walther:

The American Luther (Mankato, MN: Walther Press, ), .. Ludwig Ernest Feurbringer, Eventful Years (St. Louis: Con-

cordia Publishing House, ), –. As noted above, other writ-ers such as Paul Kuenning have charged that “Walther was convincedthat the Scriptures upheld the American system of servitude, and hepublished several articles in his magazine, Der Lutheraner, by Dr. Wil-helm Sihler of Fort Wayne containing a definitive defense of slavery asan institution.” Kuenning goes on to declare, however, “The officialposition of the Missouri Synod, typical of orthodoxy, was to remainsilent on the subject, maintaining that the consideration of ‘secular’matters by ecclesiastical bodies was improper” (). Kuenning seemsunaware that Der Lutheraner was an “official” publication of the Mis-souri Synod, so his charge that the Missouri Synod was “silent” isinconsistent with his own account. As to the charges of Walther’s sup-port for the “American system of servitude,” we shall allow Walther’s remarks to stand.

. Correspondence of C. F. W. Walther, .. Walther, Selected Letters, .. Ibid., .. Schmucker, Elements of Popular Theology, .. “Dr. Schmucker’s Letter” from The Colonization Herad, ,

contained in the Corpus of American Lutheranism, Reel , Unit X.. Schmucker, Elements of Popular Theology, –.. Ibid., , , .. Wentz, Pioneer in Christian Unity, –.. Jordahl, .. For example, Walther, “Church and State,” –.

Smith, in Essays for the Church, vols. (St. Louis: Concordia Publish-ing House, ), : –.

. Ibid., .. Ibid., .. C. F. W. Walther, The Word of His Grace: Occasional and Festi-

val Sermons, trans. and ed. Evangelical Lutheran Synod TranslationCommittee (Lake Mills, Iowa: Graphic Publishing Company, ),–.

. Ibid., .. C. F. W. Walther, Standard Epistles (Fort Wayne: Concordia

Theological Seminary Printshop, n.d.), .. S. S. Schmucker, Fraternal Appeal to the American Churches,

with a Plan for Catholic Union on Apostolic Principles (New York: Tay-lor & Dodd, ), .

. S. S. Schmucker, Lutheran Manual on Scriptural Principles: or, TheAugsburg Confession Illustrated and Sustained . . . (Philadelphia: Lindsay& Blakiston, ), –. The text concerning this article is virtually thesame as that found in Elements of Popular Theology. The format is differ-ent, however, and a discursus on Christians and “just war” is included.

. S. S. Schmucker, Elements of Popular Theology: With OccasionalReference to The Doctrines of the Reformation, As Avowed before the Dietat Augsburg in MDXXX. Designed chiefly for Private Christians and The-ological Students (Philadelphia: Smith, English & Co., ), .

. S. S. Schmucker, American Lutheranism Vindicated (Baltimore:T. Newton Kurtz, ), . The original text reads: “Of Civil Affairsthey teach that lawful civil ordinances are good works of God, andthat it is right for Christians to bear civil office, to sit as judges, tojudge matters by the Imperial and other existing laws . . .”Concordia,or Book of Concord. The Symbols of the Ev. Lutheran Church (St. Louis:Concordia Publishing House, ), (English only edition).

. S. S. Schmucker, Evangelical Lutheran Catechism, Designed forCatechumens, and the Higher Classes in Sabbath-Schools (Baltimore: T.Newton Kurtz, ), –.

. Schmucker, Elements of Popular Theology, .. Ibid., .. Ibid., .. Ibid., . Ibid., .. Walther, The Word of His Grace, –.. Walther, Standard Epistles, –, . Italics added.. Schmucker, Elements of Popular Theology, .. Ibid., .. Ibid., . Italics added.. S. S. Schmucker, The Christian Pulpit, the Rightful Guardian of

Morals, in Political No Less than in Private Life (Gettysburg: H. C.Neinstedt, ), . Cited in Abdel Ross Wentz, Pioneer in ChristianUnity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, ), .

. S. S. Schmucker, Discourse in Commemoration of the GloriousReformation of the Sixteenth Century (New York: Gould & Newman,). Schmucker actually begins this discourse with the words “Whenin the course of human events!”

. Ibid., .. Ibid., . Italics in the original.. Ibid., .. Ibid., .. Ibid., –. Italics in the original.. C. F. W. Walther, Selected Letters, trans. Roy A. Suelflow (St.

Louis: Concordia Publishing House, ), . Note: Walther wasquite concerned about the effect secular papers were having on hisparishioners: “our own Lutherans are in the political domain com-pletely led by atheistic newspapers which determine their attitudes andfrom which they naturally absorb much more than politics, as you canwell imagine” ().

. Ibid., .. C. F. W. Walther to Fr. Brunn, Nov. , Briefe, : , .

Trans. Robert W. Paul in Carl S. Meyer, ed., Moving Frontiers (St.Louis: Concordia Publishing House, ), .

. C. F. W. Walther, Communism and Socialism (Hill City, MN:

Liturgical Uniformity in Missouri

M H

jcarried forth by periodicals such as the Lutheran Witness and theAmerican Lutheran. Two periodicals of the “High Church Move-ment” within the synod, Pro Ecclesia Lutherana and Una Sancta,also provided an eloquent apology for the salutary benefits of theliturgy. Other essays, articles, and reports are also included in thiswriter’s research. What follows is something less than an exhaus-tive study of the pertinent material. It is hoped, however, thatwhat has been gathered here of a previous generation’s coming toterms with the liturgy might in some small way clarify our ongo-ing discussion.

EARLY ATTEMPTS AT UNIFORMITY

The incorporation of the English Synod into the German Evangel-ical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States in

served as a catalyst for the proliferation of liturgical material in theEnglish language. Since it first appeared in , the EvangelicalLutheran Hymn-Book had served as the chief source for worshipmaterial among the congregations of the English Synod. It con-tained almost all that was essential for worship in English, includ-ing orders of Morning Service and Evening Service, antiphons,hymns (with texts only), and the Augsburg Confession.

In , in St. Louis, when the English Synod became the Eng-lish District of the Missouri Synod, the new body presented to thesynod in convention the manuscripts of the tune-text edition ofthe Evangelical Lutheran Hymn-Book that were ready for publica-tion by Concordia Publishing House. The Evangelical Hymn-Book with Tunes, when it was published in April of , becamethe official hymnal of the Missouri Synod. Although several smallEnglish hymnals had been prepared earlier, none of these hadbeen given official status.

The hymnal contained the following: the Common Ser-vice (which included orders for Holy Communion, Matins, andVespers), introits, collects, invitatories, antiphons, responsoriesand versicles for the church year, prayers, a selection of psalms, hymns, nine chants, sixteen doxologies, a table of the festivalsof the church year with Scripture lessons and psalms appointed,indexes, and a short form for Holy Baptism in cases of necessity.

In the years leading up to , work had already begun withinthe English Synod to collect liturgical material with the desire tohave “a common ritual for all sacred acts of congregations andtheir ministers.” A committee on liturgical forms and forms forministerial acts was appointed. The men who served on this com-mittee were Dr. C. Abbetmeyer, Rev. H. Eckhardt, and Rev. G.Wegner. At the synod’s convention in the English Districtreported that the manuscript for an English agenda had beencompleted. The synod referred the work to an enlarged commit-

The liturgical question is agitating the minds of our people. Thediscussion pro and con has become lively and in some casesacrimonious. It has sometimes seemed to us a strange phenom-enon that people can get so feverishly excited over this question.There have been extremists on both sides of the fence, and, asusual in controversial issues, they have taken the floor in vocif-erous asseveration of their extreme opinions . . . . The discus-sion, after all, concerns adiaphora and should not be permittedto assume controversial and actually divisive proportions. Itshould be conducted dispassionately and should be kept free ofthe venom and bitterness and recrimination which somehow orother seem to creep in wherever the subject is broached.

D of the preceding quo-tation regarding current trends within the LutheranChurch — Missouri Synod, such was not the intent of its

author. In fact, the editor of the American Lutheran was most cer-tainly unaware that his editorial musings in the autumn of

would have any application beyond the liturgical crisis that hischurch body was then facing.

Congregational worship life within the Evangelical LutheranSynod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States between and

was anything but uniform or predictable. It was primarily duringthis period that the synod made the language transition from Ger-man to English. Just prior to this period, standard, suitable Eng-lish liturgies were simply not available for use by English-speakingcongregations. “Homemade” liturgies, which were introduced fortemporary use in many English-speaking congregations, soonbecame the rule and norm for worship even after the synod’s offi-cial English Liturgy and Agenda was issued in . Even in congre-gations where the Common Service was being used, its executionwas often mutilated. By the situation had grown so deplorablethat Theodore Graebner mournfully described the synod’s wor-ship practice as “our liturgical chaos.” Only after the issuance ofThe Lutheran Hymnal in was a degree of liturgical uniformityrecovered and maintained throughout the synod.

With few exceptions, voices both official and unofficial withinthe synod between and spoke in favor of liturgical uni-formity. The purpose of this article is to grant a new hearing tosome of those voices and movements that beckoned the congre-gations of Missouri to forsake novelty and caprice in favor ofmore traditional forms of worship. The voices of this chorus were

M H is an S.T.M. student at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis,Missouri.

D

to the ever-increasing number of English-speaking congrega-tions within the Missouri Synod. In addition to those formsalready provided in the hymnal of , the Liturgy and Agendasupplied an additional Morning Service (without communion),a Confessional or Preparatory Service, and an Afternoon Ser-vice. Under the General Prayers were included the Litany, theSuffrages, the Morning Suffrages, the Evening Suffrages, theBidding Prayer, and General Prayers. Forms were provided forBaptism, Confirmation, the Reception of Converts, the Recep-tion of Voting Members, Announcement of Excommunicationand of Restoration, Marriage, Burial, Ordination, Installation,and Dedications of various things. Musical accompaniment wasalso included.

Liturgy and Agenda received high praise from numerous sourceswhen it appeared in . The anticipation that had preceded itspublication had given way to giddy excitement by the time thisreview appeared in the Lutheran Witness in September :

Here at last is the book for which we pastors have beenwaiting, sighing, and praying. We believe that nothingmore is needed than simply the announcement that it isupon the market and ready to be mailed to anyone whoorders it. After a careful examination we can truthfully statethat it is everything which the publishers claim for it. Wefeared that after all the careful preparation there yet mightbe some deplorable omission; but our fears, we are glad tosay, proved vain. So far as we can see, nothing is omitted. . . There are many other features which will delight thepastor, delight him every Sunday when he takes the book inhand. Every one of our congregations should buy this bookat once.

Lehre und Wehre, likewise, did not restrain its delight in the newpublication:

Und was die Ausstattung betrifft, so haben wir ein Kunst-werk ersten Ranges vor uns, das in jeder Beziehung die Kritikherausfordern kann, und dessen sich niemand zu schämenbraucht, auch nicht wenn er mal unter Königen und Mil-lionären zu amtieren hätte. Unser Verlag sagt: “This book hasbeen long in the making, but now it is on the market, and, toquote freely a German proverb, as slow as it was in its per-fecting, so high it is in its perfection. It is believed that thiswill rank as really the first approximately perfect book ofchurch-forms ever published in any division of the EnglishLutheran Church, and certainly the most nearly perfect bookof forms in the Missouri Synod, either English or German.”

tee whose duty it was to examine the work and make any neces-sary revisions before proceeding with the publication. This worktook place between and .

The committee which performed this work consisted ofProfs. W. H. T. Dau and T. Graebner and the Revs. L. Buch-heimer and J. H. C. Fritz. For three years this committeeheld almost weekly meetings in the faculty room of Concor-dia Seminary. The entire text was read aloud, and changeswere made either through immediate substitutions or alter-ations or by assignment of various sections to one or theother member of the committee. The work was done with-out remuneration.

The committee’s theology of worship and especially its under-standing of the role of the liturgy are both evident in the “Fore-word” to the Liturgy and Agenda of . First the committeeextols the freedom of the gospel of Jesus Christ by which the spir-itual life of man has been emancipated from fixed forms of wor-ship. In the very next paragraph, however, the committee notesthat “Evangelical freedom from the old ceremonialism does notmean license and extreme individualism. There may be, espe-cially in the joint public worship of Christians, things that areunbecoming.” A theology of worship is developed further in thenext paragraph of the foreword:

The public worship of a number of Christians, by its verynature as a joint operation, requires ordering, to preventconfusion and collision. Moreover, whatever forms areadopted to express the homage of a company of believers,they must center around the communal interests of Chris-tians. In the worship of the congregation the vox ecclesiae isto be heard, responding to, and re-echoing, the vox Dei inthe Scriptures. Accordingly, the grand central truths of theChristian faith must find sole recognition and expression ina Christian formulary of worship.

The liturgy, then, is to serve as an expression and a confession ofthose grand central truths of the Christian faith:

The liturgy of the Church and the official sacred acts of herministers must be characterized by objectiveness. The entireliturgy is really a confession on the part of the wholeChurch, and its forms must be in harmony with the com-mon faith of all its members, so that any Christian whochances to come into an assembly of worshipers can at onceintelligently and sympathetically enter into the religiousexercise, and any non-Christian who witnesses an act ofChristian worship is at once informed regarding the essen-tial, basic, central facts of the religion of Christ.

Also, regarding the confessional nature of the liturgy, the com-mittee writes, “By her liturgies and agendas the Lutheran Churchhad offered to the world the evidence of her apostolic and ecu-menical character.”

The Liturgy and Agenda of was the first comprehensivecollection of liturgical services, prayers, and rites to be available

“Evangelical freedom from the oldceremonialism does not meanlicense and extreme individualism.”

nb

ties, only a few addressed the problem of liturgical confusiondirectly. One such article, written by W. G. Polack, was publishedin July . Titled “Our ‘Uncommon’ Service,” the article wascrafted in the form of a discussion between a pastor and a lay del-egate at a synodical gathering. The layman sought to know “the

reason for the great diversity in our church services.” As he saw it,“Every church seems to have its own private service, different inwhole or in part from any others. A visitor, if he can take part inthe liturgy at all, is at a great disadvantage.” An editorial byTheodore Graebner in August shows that the liturgical situa-tion was still festering.

We have again made the observation during a trip to Massa-chusetts and have had it confirmed by a number of othersthat there are not very many churches in our Synod whichhave the same English order of service. The Pilgrim wasable to take part in the singing of hymns, but in most caseshe was unable to find his way through the chanting of theliturgy. Familiar portions would be omitted, the order ofothers changed, while in some cases there were no responsesby the congregation at all, not even “Amen.”

Graebner concludes the paragraph facetiously:

The writer, however, as one of those who wrote and com-piled the English church-book (Liturgy and Agenda) now inuse in our congregations, may be permitted to say that itmight have been better not to print the English order of ser-vice in book form at all, but to print each part on a separatecard, so that pastors or church committees might with theutmost ease arrange them to suit their fancy.

Like the Lutheran Witness, the progressive American Lutheranalso took a healthy interest in the worship life of the MissouriSynod. In February , however, it diagnosed Missouri’s liturgi-cal practice as particularly unhealthy and most un-Lutheran:

It is beyond gainsaying that especially our English-speakingLutheran Church has permitted much of Lutheranism’sliturgical heritage to fall into disuse and to be replaced byecclesiastical crudities and vulgarities and by insipid senti-mentalities borrowed from the hip, hip, hurrah meetinghouse “services” of the American sects. The hours of wor-ship in many Lutheran churches are characterized either bya crude barrenness or by silly theatricalities. . . . In mostcases even the incomplete and rather mixed-up liturgical

The publication of the Liturgy and Agenda was indeed a mile-stone in the young life of English-speaking Lutheranism. Takentogether with the enthusiasm that surrounded the quadricen-tennial of the Reformation, there was a growing sense of iden-tity among Lutherans in the United States. But despite thesuperb quality of the new worship materials that were nowavailable and a rediscovered pride in their religious heritage, theEnglish congregations of the synod were slow in achieving uni-formity in worship practices. In fact, by all accounts, liturgicaluniformity in the synod would show little development in thetwo decades following . Writing some eighteen years afterthe Liturgy and Agenda was published, an exasperated TheodoreGraebner bemoaned the liturgical uniformity that failed tomaterialize:

In causing this new liturgy to be printed, our Synod unques-tionably intended to make possible a liturgical uniformity inour congregations in order that this element might be con-served during the transition from German to English. Themen who labored upon this book certainly had nothing elsein mind. If misgivings at times arose within them regardingthe adoption of the complete Common Service through thelength and breath [sic] of our synod, no presentiment of theconfusion which would characterize our liturgical statuseven fifteen years after the adoption of the new church-bookever entered their minds.

“OUR LITURGICAL CHAOS”

It is difficult to ascertain the precise extent of this liturgical confu-sion. Whether it was concentrated in congregations of a certainsize or location is well beyond the scope of this study. The “litur-gical chaos” itself, however — the acts and omissions thatdetoured liturgical uniformity — is rather well documented in anumber of sources from the period under study.

Already in , the very year the Liturgy and Agenda waspublished, an article by C. Abbetmeyer entitled “The Propri-eties of Worship” appeared in the Lutheran Witness. HereAbbetmeyer contrasts the elements and attitudes of Lutheranworship with the practices of the Roman system and theReformed Church. While stressing the distinctiveness of theLutheran service, he notes with alarm a tendency amongLutherans in this country to cave in to a largely rationalist andpuritanical environment. According to Abbetmeyer, Lutherancustom and Lutheran worship belong together.

Even at the present time there is an eclecticism whichemploys Roman statuary, Episcopal chancel railings,Reformed pulpit stands, etc., without regard for the innerfitness of things. What can a patchwork made up of indis-criminate borrowings, meaningless or misleading, signify inLutheran worship? It betrays, not only bad taste, but, what ismore serious, lack of Lutheran self-respect and indifferenceto, or failure to recognize, the forms which harmonize bestwith the Lutheran conception of worship.

Although articles relating to worship and liturgy appearedperiodically in the Lutheran Witness during the twenties and thir-

He notes with alarm a tendency amongLutherans in this country to cave in to alargely rationalist and puritanicalenvironment.

nb

city.” To support his assertion Graebner listed some twenty actualorders of service that demonstrated the re-orderings, omissions,and innovations that constituted the existing confusion.

Graebner was undoubtedly sensitive to this lack of uniformity,not only because he had been involved in editing the nowneglected Liturgy and Agenda, but also because he frequentlypreached in a variety of congregations across the synod. As aguest preacher Graebner found it difficult to adjust to the “spiritof emendation” that permeated so many congregations, and thatwas too often evidenced in the church’s altar book.

But the weight becomes almost insupportable when revi-sions have been written over revisions, the pen-writtenchanges crossed out by a redactor who has written themwith pencil in perpendicular on the margin, with braces,arrows, and a system of serpentine lines indicating afterwhich remnant of the original text the insertion is to bemade. Possibly the climax is reached when the margin says“Here to page .”

The Graebner essay cast ripples throughout the synod and alsoimpacted the development of The Lutheran Hymnal. An editorialin the American Lutheran in January made reference to “OurLiturgical Chaos” and echoed Graebner’s sentiment. The editorialcharacterized the orders of service currently in use as rangingfrom “the most sadly mutilated and expurgated versions of theCommon Service to the most horrifying homemade concoc-tions.” Likewise, the Reports and Memorials for the synod’s

convention contained the following overture submitted by theLeavenworth Regional Pastoral Conference:

WHEREAS, We are confronted with what is commonlyreferred to as the “liturgical chaos”; andWHEREAS, There is now lacking a liturgy with sufficientdirections for the liturgist, especially also in regard to theproper placement of Baptism and other official acts; be itResolved, That we petition the Hon. Synod to provide suchan officially endorsed liturgy . . . encouraging its universaladoption by the congregations.

On the basis of this and other overtures, the Committee on theHymn-book made several recommendations to the synod in con-vention, among them, “That the liturgical part of the hymn-bookreceive special consideration throughout.”

AN EXTREME (?) REACTION

Responses to the liturgical disarray within the Missouri Synodemerged not only from articles and essays, but also in the form ofa new liturgical movement. The Liturgical Society of St. Jameswas founded in in Hoboken, New Jersey. The society’s mem-bership was limited to clergy and laity of the Synodical Confer-ence. The Society of St. James, however, was only one branch of alarger movement known as the “High Church Movement”among Lutherans in America. By the Society of St. Jameswas defunct, and its academic work was then carried on by theLiturgical Institute of Valparaiso University.

The official organ of the Society of St. James, Pro Ecclesia

offerings of our own hymn-books are practically unknown.The beautiful musical possibilities of the versicles, introits,graduals and psalm-tunes have not even begun to come intotheir own. The communion service is often rendered withstrange interpolations that are offensive even to the unlitur-gical mind. Confusion unbounded reigns upon the liturgi-cal field.

The issue of liturgical uniformity within the Missouri Synodcame to a head when, in , an essay entitled “Our LiturgicalChaos” was published by the prolific Theodore Graebner, whowas serving on the St. Louis faculty and as editor of theLutheran Witness. Graebner’s assessment of the liturgical scenein Missouri was a scathing indictment of the diversity thatcharacterized most English services. Due to her lack of unifor-mity, Graebner declined to classify Missouri as a liturgicalchurch body:

Of the congregations of the Synod of Missouri, Ohio, andOther States it may be affirmed that they have a liturgicalform of public worship. But looking at the body as a wholeand remembering that an essential mark of a liturgicalchurch-body is uniformity, one hesitates to list the Mis-souri Synod among the liturgical churches. At the presentday our congregations still possess in their German orderof worship a set form which is followed with only slightvariations everywhere. It is otherwise with our English ser-vices. The situation here can best be described in thephrase at the head of this essay. We have liturgical chaos, aconfusion which is not at the present time giving way toorder and uniformity, but which is growing worse con-founded.

Graebner’s thorough treatment of the liturgical dilemma inMissouri traces its root cause to the meager amount of liturgicalmaterial available in English prior to . Without authorizedstandard liturgies, “Individual pastors helped themselves by mak-ing translations from German books according as needs arose intheir work, or borrowed material which appeared suitable tothem from existing English liturgies. This was done, of course, atthe sacrifice of uniformity.”

While, according to Graebner, some congregations hadrejected any and all liturgical forms, the more widespread problemwas “the Common Service rearranged and condensed, with specialoriginal features added and no attempt made to conform to thestandards or practises of any congregation, be it even in the same

Graebner’s assessment of the liturgicalscene in Missouri was a scathing indict-ment of the diversity that characterizedmost English services.

nb

laity a reaction of resentment and animosity and precipi-tated a discussion which has tended definitely to retard thebeneficial influences which the liturgical movementpromised to have.

Even Time magazine was prompted to take notice of the commo-tion created by the Society of St. James.

A LITURGICAL APOLOGETIC EMERGES

Although they advocated various approaches and remedies,nearly all of the voices that expressed concern over Missouri’sliturgical heritage between and argued in favor of anincreased liturgical uniformity throughout the synod. No onedemanded a return to legalistic ceremonialism. No one deniedthe freedom that Christ has given to his church in matters of wor-ship. Nearly every voice that contributed to the liturgical debateacknowledged, however, either explicitly or implicitly, that a uni-formly and universally prayed liturgy is “good, right, and salu-tary” for the life of the church. The remainder of this study willattempt to categorize the various arguments that were set forth indefense of the liturgy and to summarize the salient points con-tained therein.

The liturgy of the church is an audible expression of her spiri-tual unity. It not only binds together the saints of a given congre-gation, but also serves as a bond with the great Una Sancta. Thesame risen Christ who feeds the local congregation with his wordand sacrament is likewise feasting with the Church Triumphant.Berthold von Schenk, writing in , viewed this liturgical unityin terms of family life.

We dare not overlook this great truth that the parish is a fam-ily. The liturgy of the church also brings this out. It is based onthe family idea. The congregation meets on Sundays and feastdays. These are family festivals. They celebrate the great eventsin the life of the Elder Brother who has been lifted up and isnow preparing a place for them in the colony of heaven . . . .The liturgy carries this out in the proper of the day.

The connection between liturgy and the unity of the churchalso found expression through articles in the American Lutheran.An article by Ernst Pfatteicher, reprinted in , stated,

The liturgy is related to life. It is the binder that unites us inthe common worship of almighty God. . . . Loyalty demandsa certain sacrificial subordination of our tastes and fancies tothe common weal.

Lutherana, was inaugurated in . In the publication’s first issuethe chairman of the society, Rev. Berthold von Schenk, outlinedthe society’s policies:

It is the purpose and the policy of the Liturgical Society ofSt. James to further that which we now have and to bring toour appreciation our rich liturgical heritage by restoringsuch things as have been neglected in many parts of ourchurch. We are bringing nothing new, nothing which is notour own possession. We are promulgating no new doc-trines, nor are we denying any of them.

While the society recognized that a strict liturgical uniformityper se was unattainable, its membership believed that vastimprovement in liturgical practice was, nevertheless, possible.Not surprisingly, the society deplored an individualistic view ofworship.

The Christian life should be theocentric, as opposed to ego-centric pietism. The fostering of the liturgical life thereforebrings about the realization of participation in the CorpusChristi Mysticum, and therefore must be the destroyer ofindividualism, so inimical to the Christian life.

Outside responses to the new liturgical society were variousand sometimes extreme. The society’s members were pejorativelyreferred to as “Jesuits in disguise” and “ecclesiastical dressmakers”in some circles. Theodore Graebner, writing in the Lutheran Wit-ness, gave the society a tempered endorsement.

It is a reaction, in some respects extreme (we once countedthirty candles, all lighted, and the vestments are many andcolorful), to the bare and mutilated service which hasbecome the rule in our English gatherings for worship. Thesociety wants our church to be once more a liturgicalchurch. In this respect the writer — who has seen much ofhis work on the Agenda now in use in our churches go fornaught (as witness the chaos of stunted and almost unrecog-nizable “common services” in vogue)— is in full accordwith the sponsors of the movement.

Voices raised from outside the Synodical Conference pleaded fortolerance of the new movement.

The St. James Society is a little band of men who believe thatthere is no wrong in trying to understand the art of worshipand to study the traditions of the Christian church — notleast the words of Luther himself — for possible help inmaking the worship of the congregation more beautiful,more orderly, more meaningful.

The American Lutheran, while sympathizing with the goals of thesociety, lamented the unfortunate zeal of some members.

Unfortunately the zeal of some of our proponents of theliturgical movement has led them to extravagances of suchstartling character that they brought about in clergy and

Nearly every voice acknowledged thata uniformly and universally prayedliturgy is “good, right, and salutary”for the life of the church.

nb

all more and more to appreciate this unity of spirit in the bondof faith.”

The arguments in favor of liturgical uniformity thatappeared in the pages of the Lutheran Witness were based pre-dominantly upon the premise that liturgical uniformity wasthe most expedient way to achieve good order. Everyone, andespecially Lutherans away from home, it was said, could benefitfrom liturgical uniformity. A letter from “A Layman” in

expressed a common sentiment: “We are strangers on earth,but I feel that, after we enter our house of worship, we shouldbe at home; and I believe that uniformity of service would helpmore than all the handshaking to make one feel at home whenvisiting any of our many churches.” A similar letter appearedin February , which expressed delight “to note that the Wit-ness is working for greater uniformity in our church liturgy. Inmy home town there are about churches of the MissouriSynod, and I do not know of two that use the same liturgy.”

Finally, with the appearance of The Lutheran Hymnal in ,the Lutheran Witness printed pleas to “follow the entire serviceexactly.” For editor Theodore Graebner the publication of thenew hymnal was a chance to lead the synod to freedom fromthe shackles of its liturgical chaos.

Liturgical worship was also promoted in the synod by pointingout how the liturgy is able to advance the church’s doctrinal posi-tion — ever a wise tactic within the synodical context. Liturgyand doctrine are inseparable, as the well-known maxim Lexorandi lex credendi demonstrates. Hence, when the mode of wor-ship is altered, the doctrines of the church also risk alteration. C.Abbetmeyer made this connection in the Lutheran Witness in, when he wrote, “as our worship is Lutheran worship, it isproper that . . . we should observe also those customs relating to .. . the mode of worship that serve best to give Lutheran doctrinean appropriate and effective setting.” An article that appeared inthe Lutheran Witness in made the connection between liturgyand doctrine even more explicitly:

The form of worship is closely bound up with the faith con-fessed by the worshiper; so the Lutheran service is associatedinseparably with the pure doctrine this church proclaims. Adeparture from the truth is inevitably followed by corruptworship. . . . When strange worship is introduced, can onebe criticized for looking a bit skeptically at the doctrine andpractise? A slight change in the form of worship, if not actu-ally false, may give undue prominence to non-essentials,which then threaten to eclipse the great essentials of faith.

A more substantial treatment of liturgy and the unity of thechurch was given by Herbert Lindemann in an article titled “TheChurch and Worship.” Lindemann described the essence of cor-porate worship:

Corporate worship is not the worship of an isolated congre-gation assembled within the walls of a church building. It isthe worship of a small branch of the tremendous family ofGod, the “great multitude, which no man can number, of allnations and kindreds and people and tongues.” It is a wor-ship conducted in union with the entire church in earth andheaven.

Lindemann conceived that this essential connection in worshipbetween the Church Militant and Triumphant should have adirect influence on the forms of our worship.

If, therefore, the church at a given time and place comestogether for the formal worship of God in the consciousnessof her essential unity with the church of past ages now madetriumphant, it would seem altogether fitting that she usethose media of expression in which in the past the people ofGod have expressed the adoration of their souls. The logicalconsequence of the doctrine of the Una Sancta is the use of athoroughly catholic liturgy and the employment of thor-oughly catholic ceremonies.

Not surprisingly, Lindemann advocated worship forms that havebeen utilized by the church down through the centuries:

The techniques of worship which have stood the test of timeand that have been found valuable by the church of past gen-erations are not lightly to be cast aside. Most of them weredeveloped in an age that knew a great deal more about wor-ship than our own hard-headed, commercial civilization.

As the production of The Lutheran Hymnal drew nearer, theunderstanding of the liturgy as an expression of the church’sunity became even more pronounced within the synod. RichardCaemmerer, writing in the June Concordia TheologicalMonthly, noted,

Away from home the worshiper feels himself spiritually akinto his brethren of the faith where liturgy is familiar. In fact, ifthat liturgy preserves the traditional forms, he will feel him-self akin to the church of the past and will grow in apprecia-tion of the church universal. Conversely, a lack of uniformityin liturgical forms is a cause of bewilderment in worship anda testimonial to a lack of that brotherly consideration whichwill lead units of the church, also in adiaphora, to yield tothe common good.

Finally, reflecting on the completion of the new hymnal in, W. G. Polack wrote, “the fond hope of having one hymnalfor the churches of this body has been realized, giving usanother outward manifestation of the unity of faith.” It was hishope that the new hymnal and common liturgy would “help us

This essential connection in worshipbetween the Church Militant and Triumphant should have a directinfluence on the forms of our worship.

nb

The Common Service is an excellent thing because, for onething, it causes the sinner to repeat a prayer in which heconfesses his sinfulness, and his entire dependence uponhis Savior’s merit. It contains an absolution which setsforth in clearest language each Sunday the conditionsunder which the sinner is absolved or pardoned by theLord. The Gloria in Excelsis (sometimes omitted out ofsheer laziness), contains most valuable doctrinal truthregarding the Holy Trinity.

Herbert Lindemann, writing ten years later, described this peda-gogical role of the liturgy as its “impressive” function, contrastedwith its “expressive” function:

But “impressive” means that it is the duty of the church toteach the people how they ought to feel in the presence ofGod. Our attitude, upon beginning worship, is almost neverideal. We do not repent as we should, we do not give theheartfelt thanks that we should, we do not pray as we ought.. . . Here is the mission of the liturgy, which teaches us con-cerning our sins that we should be “heartily sorry for themand sincerely repent of them,” which lifts up our eyes in theGloria to him who is Most High in the glory of God theFather, and which instructs us how to approach the Lord’saltar in the Agnus Dei, telling us that we are coming to theLamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world andgrants us his peace.

This same conviction regarding the pedagogical value of theliturgy was expressed by Graebner’s essay “Our Liturgical Chaos.”

The value of a liturgical service that really means somethingand expresses something in a plain way is beyond estima-tion. A liturgical service, because of its repetition every Sun-day, will become a part of a person’s religious thought andexpression. Our Lutheran service contains such large quota-tions from the Bible that they become almost invaluablebecause of their educational value.

Whenever the worship forms of the church are discussedwithin Lutheranism, the term adiaphora is almost certain toemerge. This was also the case between and . It was neverdenied in any of the literature reviewed for this study that differ-ent customs and practices may exist within a given communionwithout disrupting the unity of faith. Uniformity in customs hasnever been considered a mark of the church and Lutherans havenever insisted on it. Yet to those given to push the limits of this

Herbert Lindemann, writing in the American Lutheran in ,admonished those in the synod who believed they could playaround with liturgical forms without affecting doctrine. If wor-ship and doctrine are entirely independent of one another, Linde-mann argued, then the church has been afflicted since infancywith a pharisaical formalism:

Neither liturgy nor worship can be divorced from doc-trine. The general impression at present seems to be thatthese have nothing to do with one another. Liturgics isthought of as a hobby instead of a department of theology.. . . But it appears necessary, in view of a rather generalpatronizing attitude toward the liturgical movement, tostate that forms and ceremonies are simply expressions oftheology; and if they are not, then the church is in thethroes of dead formalism.

In the conclusion to Lindemann’s article, which appeared onemonth later, the connection between liturgy and doctrine wassummarized in no uncertain terms. “Liturgy is valueless except asit gives expression to the church’s faith in revealed truth. . . .Liturgy exalts doctrine.” The Liturgical Society of St. James alsosought to highlight the deep connection between liturgy and doc-trine, partly in defense of the liturgical movement itself. Byreclaiming the lost treasures of the liturgy, so it was argued, thechurch was only augmenting her doctrinal bulwark. “Liturgy andBible go hand-in-hand. The Liturgical Movement has this task tomake the Book of Life one for daily life.”

The liturgy’s unique relationship to doctrine is closely relatedto its role as a public confession of faith. Through the liturgy thechurch prays and proclaims the wondrous truths that have beenrevealed by prophets and apostles. A article in the LutheranWitness shows the liturgy as both a means of personal appropria-tion and of public confession:

As to contents, the liturgy is so strongly permeated with theteachings of the Word that the body of Christian truth ispractically contained in it, and in worship these doctrinesare devotionally appropriated. Its structure is such as to dealpractically with the soul’s unchanging needs, making theservice, in effect, a devotional, edifying study of God’s Word,a personal appropriation and public confession of the faithof the church in prayer and praise.

Although this aspect of the liturgy is not heavily accented inthe writings of Theodore Graebner, he sees the liturgy’s confes-sional value as well. “Our Lutheran liturgy renders the acts ofpublic service true acts of confession of faith. This is true espe-cially of the Sunday morning worship in our church. . . . Themere presence in such a service should result in edification.”

An additional argument made in support of the liturgy con-cerned its educational value. Simply put, the liturgy is a powerfuland effective teacher. Repeated exposure to the Common Servicewas heralded as an influential pedagogical method. Although itwas never to supplant catechization, exposure to the liturgy, goodstained glass, paintings, and other forms of Christian art wasupheld as an aid in religious instruction.

“Liturgy is valueless except as it givesexpression to the church’s faith inrevealed truth. . . . Liturgy exaltsdoctrine.”

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emotionalism in the service and because even many of theReformed churches were beginning to acknowledge the useful-ness of the liturgy during this period.

LITURGICAL UNIFORMITY RE-EMERGES

By the fall of , there were indications that the trend of the pre-vious two decades concerning liturgical laxity and confusion wasgasping its final breath. An optimistic editorial in the AmericanLutheran entitled “The Spirit of Worship” contained this openingsentence: “There seems to be a definite indication that the spiritof worship in our circles is on the upward trend.” The writer ofthe editorial detected a growing trend of improvement within thecongregations of the synod in such matters as architecturaldesign, a growing interest in liturgics and hymnology, and theincreasing frequency with which the Lord’s Supper was being cel-ebrated. Similarly, among the clergy pastoral conferences weremore frequently opened with a liturgical service, as opposed to “aperfunctorily read Scripture passage” amidst a meeting roomclouded with a haze of tobacco smoke.

The publication of The Lutheran Hymnal in , became boththe catalyst and the means for nurturing the developing liturgicaluniformity throughout the Synodical Conference. At the synod’s convention, memorial , to “discontinue publication andsale of present hymnal,” was adopted with the goal of bringingabout “uniformity in the Synodical Conference in respect tohymn-books and liturgy.” W. G. Polack, who had led the com-mittee on the new hymnal, assessed the effect of TLH in theLutheran Witness in December :

Without exception the letters that I have received thus farindicate that there is a very general and wholehearted desirethroughout the length and breadth of the Synodical Confer-ence to introduce and use the liturgical services as given inthe new hymnal. The liturgical chaos in our circles which weall deplored, but which already during the past decade hadbegun to disappear, now seems to be definitely on its wayout. In its place we shall have, God willing, not a rigid,stereotyped uniformity, but an adherence to the rubrics inthe interest of a real unity in our divine services.

Even among the high church crowd, the new hymnal wasreviewed as a “high class production.”

Between the two World Wars the Missouri Synod struggled tomaintain her liturgical identity in the face of sweeping changes inthe language of her membership and an increasing commercial-ization of the American culture. The call for liturgical uniformitywas eventually heeded for a variety of reasons, not the least of

freedom through all sorts of novel and innovative forms, replieswere frequently made.

Notwithstanding this liberty, however, the trend toward uni-formity has naturally been strong. Lutheran doctrine hasdeveloped a distinct and suitable type of cultus, in which thegreat truths of Redemption are impressively set forth. TheLutheran Church . . . has preserved those usages of the past,relating to the seasons of the church-year, the appointmentsof the church-buildings, and the liturgical church-service,which, being “good” and serviceable, suit the true church ofGod in all ages.

An editorial in the American Lutheran of May directed wordsof caution toward the high church movement and liturgical inno-vators alike: “Adiaphora cease to be adiaphora when some cus-tom in a given communion develops confessional significance.”The use of ordinary bread in the sacrament and baptism byimmersion were given as examples of things no longer consideredstrictly adiaphora in light of practices in the Reformed and Bap-tist churches. The editor offers this caution to all concerned withthe liturgical question: “Ought we not make sure that by intro-ducing new customs into the Church we do not break a tie whichhelps to bind our communion together?”

The liturgy is also a “translator” of sorts, mediating interactionbetween the church and her Lord, giving expression to what thefinite human mind cannot otherwise begin to fathom. Whileacknowledging that dogma is invaluable, Herbert Lindemannalso maintained that “a living religion must have something morein it than theological distinctions.” He continues, “For the greattruths of our holy faith are mysteries. One gets to a certain pointin understanding them, and beyond that point the mind is use-less. . . . A healthy worship is built upon the true approach to theincomprehensible God.”

Perhaps no publication devoted as much time to the liturgy asa mediator between the human and divine as did Una Sancta,which effectively replaced Pro Ecclesia Lutherana as the officialorgan of the high church movement in the Missouri Synod.Joseph Simonson, a pastor in St. Paul, Minnesota, suggested that“the purpose of liturgy is to render articulate, with the aid of artand science, the simple, wordless upreach of the individual soulto God and the outreach of one man to his fellows.” Simonsonconcluded with the following description of liturgy:

Liturgy is a vital growth. It is not a thing compiled by clevereditors from some sort of Christian anthology. Above all, itrecognizes religion’s ultimate reality, God. In a service ofpublic worship . . . the individual experience is criticized,what there is in it of universal truth is discovered and castinto significant form. The church’s public service gives tothe lone Christian added clarity, expanded meaning, andadequate expression for his own personal religion.

A few additional statements were also made in support of litur-gical uniformity that received little or no treatment beyond thesentence in which they were contained. In such cases liturgicaluniformity was encouraged because the liturgy helped to curtail

“Adiaphora cease to be adiaphora whensome custom in a given communiondevelops confessional significance.”

nb

NOTES

. “The Liturgical Question,” American Lutheran (November): .

. Evangelical Hymn-Book with Tunes (St. Louis: Concordia Publish-ing House), .

. Theodore Graebner, “Our Liturgical Chaos,” in The Problem ofLutheran Union and Other Essays (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,), .

. Liturgy and Agenda (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,), iii–v.

. Ibid., v.. “The Reviewer,” Lutheran Witness (September , ): .. “Literatur,” Lehre und Wehre (September ): .. Graebner, “Our Liturgical Chaos,” .. C. Abbetmeyer, “The Proprieties of Worship,” Lutheran Witness

(June , ): .. W. G. Polack, “Our ‘Uncommon’ Service,” Lutheran Witness

(July , ): .. “The Pilgrim Goes to Church,” Lutheran Witness (August ,

): .. “Liturgical Forms,” American Lutheran (February ): .. Graebner, “Our Liturgical Chaos,” .. Ibid., .. Ibid., . Some typical examples included: “Omits one of the

responses before the confession, also the Kyrie and Gloria. OmitsCreed, General Prayer, and offertory”(). Also: “Of the confessionthe ‘O most merciful God’ is omitted; also the Kyrie and Gloria. TheCreed follows at once after Scripture-reading. There is no offertory,and the service closes with the stanza of a hymn read by the pas-tor”().

. Ibid., .. American Lutheran (January ): .. Reports and Memorials (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,

), .. Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Regular Convention of the Ev.

Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States (St. Louis: ConcordiaPublishing House, ), . This and other committee recommendationswere adopted by the synod.

. For a synopsis of this movement see David L. Schiedt, “The ‘High

Church Movement’ in American Lutheranism,” Lutheran Quarterly (November ).

. Berthold von Schenk, “Policies of the Society,” Pro EcclesiaLutherana (): .

. Berthold von Schenk, “The Task of the St. James Society,” ProEcclesia Lutherana (): .

. Theodore Graebner, “A Liturgical Conference,” Lutheran Witness (October , ): .

. Conrad Bergendoff, “Pro Ecclesia Lutherana,” Augustana Quar-terly (): .

. “The Liturgical Question,” American Lutheran (November): .

. See “Lutheran Liturgists,” Time (February , ): .. Richard Caemmerer, writing in , opted for a more moderate

view of liturgical uniformity. While upholding the value of liturgical uni-formity, he cites examples from Luther to uphold the thesis that “Theliturgy is not to be viewed as a sacred deposit that is tampered with onlyby impious hands. But rather it is a valid principle that the liturgy is to beaccommodated to the given parish situation.” To read his entire argu-ment see Richard R. Caemmerer, “On Liturgical Uniformity,” ConcordiaTheological Monthly (June ).

. von Schenk, “Task,” .. Ernst P. Pfatteicher, “The Saint Who Knew How—St. Ambrose,”

American Lutheran (September ): .. Herbert Lindemann, “The Church and Worship,” American

Lutheran (October ): , .. Caemmerer, .. Reports and Memorials (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,

), .. “Our Liturgical Confusion,” Lutheran Witness (June ,

): .. “Our Liturgical Chaos,” Lutheran Witness (February ,

): .. See “Follow the Entire Service Exactly,” Lutheran Witness (Sep-

tember , ): . Also “Follow the Entire Service,” Lutheran Witness (October , ): .

. C. Abbetmeyer, “The Proprieties of Worship,” Lutheran Witness (June , ): .

in liturgical uniformity. The liturgy was, by and large, present inthe services of synodical congregations — mutilated, distorted,not always recognizable, but in use nonetheless. The currentdilemma surrounding liturgical worship has already spread to anadvanced stage in which the liturgy has very nearly disappearedaltogether in many synodical settings. Today a recovery of theliturgy itself is desperately needed. Calls for liturgical uniformitytoday could be addressed only to a dwindling audience. Second,our current liturgical dilemma lacks a significant public forum inwhich discussion and education on the liturgy might be carriedforth. Although some periodicals and some people are attempt-ing to raise liturgical awareness in pockets throughoutLutheranism, the long arm of influence exerted by the AmericanLutheran and the Lutheran Witness before has either disap-peared or withered, respectively.

The eloquent and pastoral manner in which the synod wasbeckoned to embrace the liturgy in the decades preceding

serves as a historical paradigm for the recovery of the theologicaltreasures to be found in liturgical worship. And though the litur-gical chaos of the present age is largely of a different sort than wasexperienced seventy years ago, the apology made for the liturgy atthat time remains just as true and certain today. LOGIA

which was the forum for discussion of the liturgy provided byperiodicals such as the Lutheran Witness and the AmericanLutheran. These publications repeatedly reported on the liturgicaltopsy-turviness regularly observed throughout the synod, whileholding before their readers the joy and edification to be realizedin a uniform observance of the Common Service.

Some comparisons and contrasts are evident between the litur-gical chaos of the Missouri Synod before World War II and thecurrent liturgical dilemma throughout Lutheranism. By way ofcomparison, it was a change in language that precipitated the firstfall away from liturgical worship, and our current struggles withliturgical worship are no less related to language. Words in theEnglish language today are systematically being stripped of theirprecise meaning and definition. In the world of Postmodernism,words are utilized for the exertion of power and created effect,while the technical meaning of the word is seen as unimportant.It should therefore come as no surprise to us that the theologi-cally loaded words of the liturgy are so easily set aside today infavor of words that seem more effective and potent.

But our current trouble with liturgical worship is to be con-trasted with its earlier outbreak in two critical areas. First, whatoccurred between and in the Missouri Synod was a crisis

. Graebner, “Our Liturgical Chaos,” -.. C. Abbetmeyer, “The Proprieties of Worship,” Lutheran Witness

(June , ): .. “Adiaphora,” American Lutheran (May ): .. Herbert Lindemann, “The Church and Worship,” American

Lutheran (September ): .. Joseph Simonson, “A Liturgical Meditation,” Una Sancta (Sep-

tember-October ): .. “The Spirit of Worship,” American Lutheran (October ): .. Reports and Memorials (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,

), .. W. G. Polack, “A Reply,” Lutheran Witness (December ,

): .. “The Lutheran Hymnal,” Una Sancta (May-August ): .

. Lawrence Gallman, “The Common Service Belongs to the Peo-ple,” Lutheran Witness (October , ): .

. Herbert Lindemann, “The Church and Worship,” AmericanLutheran (September ): .

. Herbert Lindemann, “The Church and Worship,” AmericanLutheran (October ): .

. von Schenk, “Task,” .. C. Abbetmeyer, “The Proprieties of Public Worship,” Lutheran

Witness (August , ): .. Graebner, “Our Liturgical Chaos,” .. F. R. Webber, “The Educational Value of the Liturgy,” American

Lutheran (March ): .. Herbert Lindemann, “The Church and Worship,” American

Lutheran (October ): .

In commemoration of a life committed to the Gospel and adeath which by the power of that Gospel ushered Luther intoeternal life, Concordia Historical Institute is producing ananniversary medallion.

The purpose behind the production of this -inch medallionis to assist congregations, laypeople and pastors in celebratingtheir Lutheran heritage as they consider the abundant spiritualblessings God bestowed on His people through His servant Mar-tin Luther and during the years since his death.

The coin features Luther on his death bed, surrounded byfriends and loved ones, with his hand on Holy Scripture. Beneathhim appear the words “Be thou faithful unto death.” (Rev. :)The reverse side of the coin pictures Castle Church in Witten-berg, Luther’s final resting place. It is designed by Rev. ScottBlazek, an LCMS pastor who has extensive experience in thedesign and production of such medallions.

Concordia Historical Institute is suggesting purchase of thismedallion as a suitable gift for confirmands upon reaffirmationof their baptismal vow along with their promise to be faithfulunto death. Those leading tours to Lutherland during theanniversary year may also wish to offer them to tour members asa memento of their trip.

The medallion is offered at a cost of . for the bronzeand . for the silver in order to cover production costs.Shipping and handling costs are extra.

Concordia Historical Institute DeMun Avenue • St. Louis, MO

() -

Obverse Reverse

Commemorative Medal Celebrates Years of Luthermarks the th anniversary of the death of the great Reformer Martin Luther. n

the church at Ephesus that they are built upon the foundationof the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself as thechief cornerstone (Eph :). Here the church is seen not assomething made by human hands but as a building erected byGod himself.

The apostolic office, as well as its successor, the holy min-istry, was chosen by God himself and not by man. The twelveapostles were directly appointed by the sovereign decision ofJesus Christ, God’s Son. All four Gospels tell how Jesus himselfselected his disciples (Jn ; Mt , , ; Mk –; Lk –), andJesus reminded them on their last evening together, “Ye havenot chosen me, but I have chosen you” (Jn :). Jesuspromised to Peter before his death and resurrection, “I will giveunto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoeverthou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatso-ever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt:; :).

On Easter evening Jesus fulfilled his earlier promise to Peterwith the institution of the holy office of preaching and absolu-tion. Jesus said, “‘As my Father hath sent me, even so send Iyou.’ And . . . he breathed on them, and saith unto them,‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they areremitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they areretained’” (Jn :–). The office of the keys must not betwisted into words addressed to all Christians; Jesus spoke onlyto the disciples and not to everyone. By analogy, these wordsapply to the ordained pastors today. Furthermore, we noticethat only the eleven disciples were addressed when the risenLord said, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizingthem in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the HolyGhost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I havecommanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto theend of the world” (Mt :–). In Acts :, Jesus charged hisdisciples: “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost hascome upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both inJerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter-most part of the earth.”

The New Testament apostolate was unique. The Twelve, whohad followed Jesus, had witnessed his death, and had seen himafter his resurrection, held a position that could be held by noothers in church history. But the apostles, and later in particularthe apostle Paul, chose and ordained preachers and missionarieswhom they sent out to continue fulfilling the missionary com-mand of Christ. And according to classical Lutheran doctrine, theoffice of the holy ministry of word and sacrament continuestoday as the extension of the office of the apostles.

j

T and its ministry continuesto be one of the most perplexing problems in Lutherantheology and practice in America. It is of course true that

some writers refer to a “traditional Lutheran doctrine of churchand ministry,” but among those who claim such a traditionaldoctrine, the opinions range all the way from a hierarchicalstance on one side to a position in which the pastoral office existsonly as a function that can also be filled by lay persons.

During the nineteenth century, powerful debates over this doc-trine engrossed the Lutheran churches of Europe and America.Indeed, as a recent Swedish writer expressed it, the best way toorient oneself to the various emphases of Lutheran ecclesiology isto revisit the debates of the nineteenth century. In North Amer-ica the classical debate was between Johann August AndreasGrabau of Buffalo and Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther ofSt. Louis. After presenting the issues, this essay will investigate theHirtenbrief (Pastoral Letter) of Grabau from and Walther’sreply of in Kirche und Amt.

THE TWO MAIN TYPES OF DOCTRINE REGARDINGCHURCH AND MINISTRY

It can be said that in the history of doctrine there are two oppo-site positions from which all others are derived: a theocentricdoctrine of church and ministry, in which the church originatesin Christ, who himself founds it and calls its pastors and preach-ers; and an anthropocentric position, in which the church is thesum total of people who have come together to constitute achurch and who themselves call a pastor from their midst (trans-feral theory). The former is based upon biblical teaching, andthe later is derived from social contract theory and democraticideology. Let us analyze in turn these two approaches.

Scriptural Evidence for a Theocentric Doctrine of Church and Ministry

Proponents of a theocentric understanding of church andministry point to the biblical evidence and insist that both churchand ministry were founded by Jesus Christ himself. It would gobeyond the limits of this study to present a detailed exegeticalanalysis. Nevertheless, it is necessary briefly to refer to severalstatements of the New Testament.

In Matthew : Christ declares to Peter, “You are a rock,and upon this rock I will build my church.” And Paul reminds

Grabau and WaltherTheocentric versus Anthropocentric Understanding

of Church and Ministry

L C. G

L C. G is a L contributing editor and adjunct professorof history at State University of New York at Buffalo, New York.

T

patronage of a Cistercian monastery, which opposed their refor-mation. Luther defended the right of the people at Leisnig tocall their own preacher in a treatise published under the titleThat a Christian Assembly or Community Has the Right andPower to Judge Teaching and to Call or Discharge Teachers: TheBasis and the Cause out of the Scriptures. Some American inter-preters have interpreted this treatise outside its historical con-text. The word Gemeine meant “community”; its leaders at Leis-nig were the ehrbare Männer (nobility within the parish), Rat(mayor and aldermen), Viertelmeister (masters of the guilds ofthe weavers, bakers, cobblers, and coopers), and the Ältesten(leaders of the merchants). Luther was addressing the civicleaders and not a “voters’ assembly” or even “church council” inthe American sense. Therefore Luther’s words should not beused here as a proof-text for the transferal of word and sacra-ment from the congregation to the called preacher or for thedoctrine of congregationalistic supremacy. Instead, Luther’spoint was that every local church has the same authority as theuniversal church, of which it is part. Therefore, after the analogyof the universal church, the local church could call its ownpreachers and teachers.

On the basis of John :, “My sheep know my voice,” Luthercontended that lay people were competent to judge whetherteaching was in accord with Christ’s teachings or not. Each mem-ber had responsibility for the salvation of the other members ofthe church, and, as a member of the “royal priesthood of believ-ers,” was eligible to teach. But for the sake of order, the commu-nity should select a qualified leader as pastor and commit to himthe work of administering the means of grace.

In another pamphlet of , On Establishing Ministries for theChurch, written to his followers in Prague, Luther seemed tobase the ministry of word and sacrament upon the royal priest-hood. He added: “The ministry of the Word is the highestoffice in the church, absolutely unique and also common to allwho are Christians, not merely by right but also by com-mand.” A similar line of thought recurred in the Exposition of Peter, which Luther published in . Here he went out fromthe words of Peter :, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up aspiritual house, an holy priesthood.” Luther commented thatthe religious community was to select one from its number toexercise the power that they all held in common; they had theright both to select a pastor and to depose him again at will(WA : ). Although these two statements sound like themodern transferal view of the ministry, we should be cautiousenough to note that Luther does not say here that the ministry istransferred from people to pastor. But it seems clear thatbetween and he did teach that the local communityhas the right to choose its own pastor, a position that was usedby the later adherents of social contract theory or by the disci-ples of Schleiermacher to support nineteenth-century transferalviews of church and ministry.

Luther’s faith in the local congregation was shaken by his expe-rience with Carlstadt and other extremists after . The enthusi-asm of the Schwärmer, the fanaticism of extremists such as Carl-stadt and Müntzer, and the violence of what he called “the rob-bing and murderous horde of the peasants” convinced Lutherthat he must follow another course. From this time on, Luther

Social Contract Enthusiasm as the Basis for an Anthropo-centric Doctrine of Church and Ministry

Since transferal views of the ministry have been very popularin our time, we need to trace their historical and philosophicalderivation from secular thinking, such as notions of popular sov-ereignty. The social contract theory is commonly traced back toAristotle. The later Stoic philosophers taught that authority is pri-marily vested in the people. Although the people have the inborn“right” to rule themselves, for practical considerations they trans-fer this right to their political leaders. Therefore rulers have theirpower by the consent of the governed. When those rulers fail toserve those whom they govern, the latter can remove their con-sent and overthrow their rulers.

Social contract thinking became important during the greatconflicts between emperor and pope in the Middle Ages. It isincorrect to say that this was a conflict between state and church,concepts that did not exist at that time. The question raised insuch a unified society, which embraced both state and church,was this: whether the Holy Roman Emperor or the Bishop ofRome, the pope, should rule the Corpus Christianum. In supportof the pope, Manegold of Lautenbach adapted the concept ofpopular sovereignty to attack the German king, whose position,he said, was elective, and therefore he ruled only by consent of hispeople. Therefore, Manegold claimed, King Henry IV should bedeposed because of his “wicked assault” on Pope Gregory VII,God’s own chosen representative. Supporters of the emperor andadversaries of the pope, such as Siegebert of Gembloux, held thatthe pope did not rule by divine right, but that his powers hadbeen conferred upon him by consent of the bishops. Pope Gre-gory VII had acted as a tyrant and as the enemy of God in depos-ing Emperor Henry IV, the divinely ordained king and emperorappointed by God himself. Therefore the bishops and princesshould depose this sacrilegious pope and replace him withanother bishop of their choosing.

It has been insisted by some that the early Luther held to socialcontract thinking in his doctrine of church and ministry. As amatter of fact, there are statements that tend to support thisclaim. After , however, such statements disappear in favor of astrongly theocentric understanding of church and ministry.

Since these remarks from Luther’s formative years have been uti-lized recently to support transferal views of church and ministry,let us look into them more fully.

In , the evangelical community of the small Saxon city ofLeisnig and surrounding villages confronted Luther with anunusual problem. The entire community of nobility, townsmen,and peasants had become Lutheran and wanted a Lutheranpreacher, but medieval canon law had placed them under the

Luther’s point was that every localchurch has the same authority as theuniversal church, of which it is part.

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The Declaration of Independence questioned the traditionalChristian teaching that “the powers that be are ordained of God”(Rom :) and replaced the theory of “the divine right of kings”with the view that government is only by the consent of thosewho are governed. This became the cornerstone of Americandemocracy, and its teachings quickly spread to a world sufferingfrom the tyranny of absolute kings and princes.

The great Reformed theologian at the University of Berlin,Friedrich Schleiermacher (–), was the most importantmiddleman who applied the social contract theory to an anthro-pocentric doctrine of church and ministry. He greatly influencedall subsequent thinkers in Lutheran as well as Reformed camps.With a background in Pietism and Romanticism, both of whichcelebrated the autonomous individual, the virtuoso religiouspersonality, and the notion of religion as a unique personalexperience, Schleiermacher went forth in his battle against theo-logical Rationalism. And since the Rationalists had destroyed theauthority of the Bible through their biblical criticism, he pro-ceeded to circumvent the problem and write a dogmatics thatwas independent of biblical proofs. Schleiermacher establishedthe Christian religion upon the concept of the pious self-con-sciousness of the individual believer. Since his theology wasgrounded upon experience, no biblical critic could assail itsbasis. He defined faith as “the feeling of dependency upon God”and the church as the conscious coming together of those whohave experienced this feeling of dependence upon God. Therebythe formation of the church was by a kind of social contract.Like-minded people came together and formed the church.Since the church was based upon a religious experience (theirfeeling of dependence upon God), a feeling which they all pos-sessed in common, they all possessed spiritual authority equally.But for practical reasons, the congregation would delegate one ofits number to serve as minister; upon him they transferred the“right” to administer the functions of the ministerial office. Herewe find the roots of the transferal view of the ministry that wasto pervade thinking about church and ministry in America aswell as Germany.

We should not overlook the fact that in Schleiermacher’s reac-tion against Rationalism, he not only changed the source of the-ology from the Scriptures to the pious self-consciousness of thetheologian, but he also removed the media salutis from churchand ministry and replaced them with the religious experience ofpastor and people. This was in line with the Pietism of Schleier-macher’s youth. It also expressed his position as a Reformed the-

more and more emphasized the theocentric character of churchand ministry. In the visitations that began in , increasingsupervision was given to the territorial churches.

Already in the Advent Postil of , Luther declared that theministry does not come from us but to us:

To serve Christ and to serve God is called by St. Paul the fill-ing of an office which Christ has committed to him,namely, preaching; it is a service which goes forth fromChrist and not to Christ, and that comes not from us butrather to us; that you must clearly see, and it is very neces-sary, for otherwise you cannot know what these words ofPaul mean: minister, ministerium, ministratio, ministrare,etc. (WA , : , –).

Among his Sermons on John –, there is a sermon on John:– from in which Luther unmistakably referred thewords of Christ to the apostolic office and the pastoral ministry.Luther preached:

After He by his word and work had strengthened them inthe faith of his resurrection, he committed to them the officeof preaching and gave them power and authority to forgiveand retain sins. Thereby he showed what the office ofpreaching is, namely, such an office that our life and salva-tion stand within it. . . . It is an excellent office and Wordwhich he here commended to the disciples; therefore oneshall not regard it as unimportant. . . . The office of preach-ing is such a precious thing [to Paul] that he calls it the wordof reconciliation with God and a message in the stead ofChrist [ Cor :–] and the office of the Holy Ghost[ Cor :] (WA : , –).

Here the ministerial office is linked directly to Christ withoutany transferal from the priesthood of believers, and the office ofpreaching is Christ’s gift to the priesthood of believers, not a“possession” that they exercise at their own will. (See below, “TheChristological Problem.”)

Social Contract Thinking in the Enlightenment and Romanticism

Modern Protestant independence and congregationalism goback to the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, who insisted uponthe separation of church and state and the autonomy of the localcongregation. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, thesenotions merged with the concept of popular sovereignty to formmodern democratic theories of government as well as a new secu-larized doctrine of church and ministry. Jean Jacques Rousseau(–) taught in his powerful writings that political rule is notby “divine right” but by consent of those who are governed, andinspired Frenchmen to rebel against the decadence and tyranny ofthe Bourbon monarchy. He also applied his views to attack previ-ous views on parent-child relationships and to advocate a child-centered plan of education (Social Contract, ; Emile, ).

Long before the French Revolution broke out, however, Ameri-can freethinkers such as Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, andThomas Jefferson had responded to the teachings of Rousseau.

Friedrich Schleiermacher was the mostimportant middleman who appliedthe social contract theory to ananthropocentric doctrine of church and ministry.

nb

only for Ritschl to say that the pastor “represented” the congrega-tion (rather than God!) in the divine service. This was the totalsurrender of the classical Lutheran doctrine, according to whichthe church service is a divine service because God is the one whoacts, the pastor is his representative, and the congregation is thepassive recipient of the means of grace.

Transferal notions of church and ministry were notablyopposed by Wilhelm Löhe (–), August Vilmar(–), and Theodor Kliefoth (–). In America,besides the pupils of Löhe, such as Sigmund and GottfriedFritschel, the principal spokesman for a theocentric doctrine ofchurch and ministry was Grabau. Although one must applaudGrabau’s insistence upon sound doctrine and practice, one willalso find occasion to criticize several of his positions.

PROBLEMS ARISING FROM THE POLITICIZATION OFTHE LUTHERAN CHURCH AND ITS MINISTRY

The Experience in the Old Prussian Union

Although Johannes Andreas August Grabau (–) camefrom Germany like Walther, he came out of a very different his-torical and theological context. The background for understand-ing the life and work of Grabau is the German state church,resulting from the seizure of power over the Lutheran Church bythe cities, princes, and estates. During the Reformation, Lutherhad tried to prevent the worldly princes from getting control overthe church. He was followed in this by the so-called Gnesio-Lutherans of the following generation, led by the indomitableFlacius, who resisted the growing trend toward the state church.

But the movement could not be halted. The old Roman bishopshad failed to administer their dioceses, and the Lutheran princesand other estates all too willingly stepped in as “emergency bish-ops” to right the wrongs. Melanchthon and his followers hadbeen willing to let the princes and estates take over, and the pas-tors and congregations soon found themselves under the controlof a state church.

In some cases the Lutheran princes exerted a most beneficialinfluence upon the affairs of their churches. But all too oftenthings did not go very well. Some princes practiced manipulationand interference, which were harmful to the church. Particularlyin Brandenburg, after the conversion of the electoral family to theReformed religion (Johann Sigismund, ), manipulation andoppression were notorious. Already in the seventeenth centurythe “Great Elector” of Brandenburg cruelly persecuted the noblehymn writer Paul Gerhardt. Using Brandenburg as a base forexpansion, the electors annexed parts of Saxony, Prussia, Pomera-nia, Lower Saxony, Westphalia, and the Rhineland, and assumedthe title of “King in Prussia.” The lowest level was reached whenKing Frederick William III forced the pastors and laity of seventhousand Lutheran churches and three hundred Reformed con-gregations to come together in the Prussian Union. Manyobjected for reasons of conscience, but the king would tolerate nodissent. A fierce persecution broke out against those who couldnot accept the new Union Church. The use of the “UnionAgenda” was required of Lutherans (but not of the Reformed,who rejected it). Reformed practices, such as breaking the bread

ologian toward the church service. Whereas Lutherans speak of adivine service in which God “serves” his people with the means ofgrace, the Reformed have a concept of the church service as a“worship of the deity.” Thus a divine service for Lutherans is awork of divine grace performed by God through the office of theministry; contrariwise, a “worship service” is a human goodwork. In Lutheran churches today the Lutheran doctrine of thedivine service has been widely replaced by Schleiermacher’s con-cept of worship.

Schleiermacher’s change of the theological curricula, whichwas generally accepted also by Lutheran seminaries, did furtherdamage to Lutheran theology. He removed the study of the divineservice from systematic theology and placed it under the new dis-cipline of practical theology (“liturgics”). In other words, for himas a Reformed thinker, the study of the divine service was a mat-ter of technique rather than of doctrine. Why did Lutherans failto discern this? Why do we today follow Schleiermacher in mod-eling our seminary curriculum after his thinking instead of ours?How can we permit the divorce of the divine service from doctri-nal theology?

In spite of these inconsistencies, the Reformed theology ofSchleiermacher was very quickly adapted to Lutheran theology.An important thinker who strongly influenced nineteenth-cen-tury Lutheran theology was Johann Christian Konrad von Hof-mann (–), a leader of the “Erlangen School.” Hofmannand his Erlangen colleagues adapted the ideas of Schleiermacherby teaching that the ministerial office is transferred from the con-gregation to the pastor. These Erlangen men included JohannWilhelm Friedrich Höfling (–), Adolf Harleß(–), Gottfried Thomasius (–), and TheodosiusHarnack (–). They were joined in this by their famousliberal opponent, Albrecht Ritschl (–). Harleß, who wasmore moderate than other representatives of a transferal theory,thought that the public office of the ministry grew out of theroyal priesthood of believers; the authority of the pastoral officerested upon the authority of the congregation, which it trans-ferred to the pastor. Höfling was more drastic when he concludedthat the pastoral office was an “emanation” or an “organization”of the priesthood of believers based on the “collective rights” ofthe congregation. He spoke of the pastor as preaching the gospeland administering the sacraments in the name of the congrega-tion and by its authorization “for the fellowship and by permis-sion of that fellowship.” We note that here a human organiza-tion had taken the place of Christ, who had said, “As my Fatherhath sent me, even so send I you” (Jn :). And it remained

It remained only for Ritschl to saythat the pastor “represented” the congregation (rather than God!) in the divine service.

nb

The Union Church stood in obvious contradiction to the Confes-sions and church orders. When Grabau defended this legal basisof his congregation at Erfurt, he was accused of defying the gov-ernment and was cast into prison.

Grabau Leads the Refugees from the Prussian Union to America

Grabau is of historical importance for at least three reasons.The first is as an historical leader. He was one of many Lutheranswho were persecuted by the “King in Prussia” for defending theirfaith. Grabau, after a heroic profession of his faith that broughton him long imprisonment, led several thousand religious

refugees to a new life in Buffalo, New York, and points west-ward. Second, he became a “church father” in the New Worldwhere he was an important leader of the Altlutheraner (OldLutherans), that is, those who upheld the original Lutheran faithand practice. On June , , in Milwaukee, he founded “DieSynode der aus Preussen eingewanderten lutherischen Gemein-den,” commonly called the Buffalo Synod. Out of Grabau’s workemerged many congregations that became part of the Missouriand the Wisconsin synods. Grabau, more than any otherLutheran leader at Buffalo, carried out tireless missionary jour-neys and established most of the early Lutheran congregations inwestern New York and southern Ontario. As parish pastor,Grabau sought to restore the practices of Old Lutheranism,including private confession and absolution, divine services thatfollowed traditional Lutheran liturgical practices, and suitableecclesiastical art. For example, emphasis was placed upon the cru-cifix with the figure of Christ as emblem of the real presence inopposition to the Reformed preference for the empty cross. Histhird contribution was as a theological thinker, writer, andteacher. His theological method was based upon the Scriptures,the Confessions, and the church orders of post-ReformationLutheranism. Grabau founded Martin Luther Seminary at Buf-falo and served on its faculty for many years. He founded andedited the church paper, Informatorium. After the schism of

he established a new periodical, Die Wachende Kirche. Thesebecame vehicles of his teachings on faith and practice. He alsoedited an excellent hymnal, which was highly liturgical in charac-ter and beautifully printed and bound.

Grabau was disliked by many of his contemporaries. He wascharacterized as being haughty and overbearing, as being exces-sively polemical, as being aggressive and even violent in theologi-cal conflicts, as desiring to be the Herr Pastor and dominate thecongregation, as greedy for power over others, as lacking a senseof democracy, as being “high church,” Romish, or papal in his pre-tensions, as being void of Christian charity, as being fanaticallyconfessional in his Lutheranism, as legalistic, and as repristinarianand out of step with the times. Subsequent evaluations of Grabau

in the Lord’s Supper, were made compulsory. Many whoresisted were cast into prison. When Johann Gottfried Scheibel ofBreslau sent an appeal to King Frederick William III, he receivedthis curt reply: “Regarding the troubling of consciences, nothingcan be said. It is the duty of subjects to obey the orders of theKing.” Scheibel was suspended from the pastoral office. Afterthis a general persecution of Lutherans broke out.

The most notorious case was at Hoenigern in Silesia. Whenthe secular powers suspended Eduard Kellner, their beloved pas-tor, the whole congregation gathered before their church todemonstrate for their pastor and to block the seizure of theirbuilding by the government. When the administrator com-manded them to turn over the keys to the church, the membersrefused. Some little old ladies, who had plugged up the keyholesto prevent entry, stood weeping and guarding the doors. Afterthree months of threats and entreaties had failed, the king sentan army of four hundred infantry and a cavalry of fiftycuirassiers and fifty hussars to force these Lutherans to submit tothe Prussian Union. They arrived on December , . As thecongregation sang hymns in front of their church, blocking anentrance, the soldiers charged the people with sabers, therebyscattering them, forced open the doors of the church, and took itinto their keeping. The next day, a Christmas Service was heldby Pastors Hahn and Bauch, who had been sent by the king,before an empty church. It was from such religious persecu-tion that a thousand Lutheran refugees fled to the New Worldunder Pastor Grabau.

Grabau’s Reaction against the Politicization of Church and Ministry in Prussia

Grabau was born at Olvenstedt, a village near the city ofMagdeburg in the Province of Saxony, an area that had beenplaced under Prussian control by the Congress of Vienna ().Following the early death of Grabau’s father, his mother struggledto get a good education for her son. He attended the famouscathedral school at Magdeburg and then went on to study at thenearby University of Halle. Magdeburg had once been the centerof the strict Gnesio-Lutherans, and the Formula of Concord hadbeen written in the neighboring Bergen Abbey. Halle had longsince become a center of pietistic and liberal theology.

After ordination, Grabau was placed as pastor in theSt. Andrew Lutheran Church of Erfurt, which was in the Pruss-ian Province of Saxony (to be distinguished from the moresoutherly Kingdom of Saxony, Walther’s former home).Thereby Erfurt had come under the Union Church, and Grabaufound himself in conflict with the church politics of the Pruss-ian state. As a Lutheran pastor he had pledged faithfulness tothe Holy Scriptures, the Lutheran Confessions, and the SaxonChurch Order.

What was the Saxon Church Order? Although medieval canonlaw was abolished in the Reformation, Lutheran theologicalschools have always retained the study of evangelical churchlaw. The church orders (Kirchenordnungen) had laid down theteaching basis for the churches (the Scriptures and Confessions),had defined the doctrine of church and ministry, had establishedstandards for the divine services, and had laid down various rulesfor the operation of the parishes as well as the church at large.

As parish pastor, Grabau sought to re-store the practices of Old Lutheranism.

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warned against receiving the sacrament from anyone without “aright and complete churchly call to the public administration ofthe holy sacraments.”

Grabau cited the sacred Scriptures, the Lutheran symbols, andthe sixteenth-century church orders as three guides to developinga sound Lutheranism in America. Since the young congrega-tions had been plagued by the shortage of pastors and had beenendangered by unsuitable candidates, Grabau laid down the prin-ciples for calling a suitable pastor. The candidate must be rightlygrounded in the teachings of the church and must be a diligenttheologian. He must possess the gifts of the Holy Ghost and beempowered by the Spirit. Good order dictated that he should beexamined by true ministers of the church. His examination mustestablish that the candidate had been properly instructed and thathe had been empowered by the Holy Ghost for the work. Duringa period of serving in lesser offices in the church, he must showhimself by pure teaching and godliness of life. It must be deter-mined that the candidate was a faithful steward of the mysteriesof God, as observed in his teaching and life. He was not tobecome a servant of men or serve according to his own whims,but according to the principles established by the church.

The following steps should be followed in calling a new pastor:

() The congregation should pray until it finds a qualifiedman. They should examine the man according to Timothy:, determining that he gives a good confession and is nota novice. If the entire congregation cannot take part in allthese steps, then their representatives are to carry out thetask.

() If the candidate is not yet ordained, ordination shouldfollow with the laying on of hands by all the pastors who arepresent.

() In the public installation the candidate is to be pre-sented to the people as a shepherd truly called by God, withthe congregation as his true fold. The new pastor promisesto be faithful in teaching and in life. The congregationpromises faithfulness and obedience in all things not con-trary to the Word of God.

Because of the shortage of suitable pastors on the Americanfrontier, Grabau advised congregations not to accept unqualifiedmen and warned them against false prophets. He gave the follow-ing suggestions:

() Pray for a true servant, in order that God may undothe damage that has been committed by false shepherds.

() Do not let false pastors baptize your children. Waituntil a true pastor comes, or let the father of the baby or afriend perform the baptism.

() Wait for the Lord’s Supper until a true pastor isavailable.

() As to marriages, wait for the pastor to come, or else letone of the brethren perform the ceremony now and have itconfirmed later by the pastor. The marriage ceremony shouldbe held according to the form in Luther’s Traubüchlein.

() As to church services, elders or teachers should readprinted sermons and conduct the service when no pastor is

have been predominately negative. It is felt by many critics that heshould not be given a fair hearing today. To say that a professor orpastor espouses the ecclesiology of Grabau is regarded in some cir-cles today as the ultimate disgrace. This hinders the impartial dis-cussion of his teaching. Since no scholarly study of Grabau hasever been published, and his most famous work, the Hirtenbrief(Pastoral Letter), is often blamed but rarely read, we shall under-take a brief analysis of this important document.

THE HIRTENBRIEF OF GRABAU, 1840

This letter, which was ten pages in length, was first published as asmall pamphlet. It opened with a modest statement givingGrabau’s views on church and ministry, asking for the readers tooffer their comments, and stating the author’s willingness to becorrected. The reader almost immediately learns that the occa-sion for this Hirtenbrief (Pastoral Letter) is Grabau’s discovery ofa crisis in pastoral leadership. The indigenous Lutheran denomi-nations that were present before Grabau’s arrival were ofteninfected by rationalism and the “American Lutheranism” advo-cated by Schmucker, who had rewritten the Augsburg Confes-sion to make it acceptable to the Reformed. Lutheran immi-grants, who did not understand the wiles of America, were des-perately looking for pastors, while men of other confessionalpersuasions were deceitfully presenting themselves as Lutheranpastors. In his Hirtenbrief Grabau warned the German immi-grants against accepting false leaders who were really wolves cladin sheep’s clothing.

In the introduction Grabau acclaimed the privilege of living ina new country with freedom of religion and freedom of thechurch. He warned, however, that this freedom might also bemisused. In such a case, the purpose of their emigration “out ofthe land of persecution of the church” would be wasted. Sincethere is but “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” the unity of thechurch must be preserved. Grabau placed the burden for suchpreservation at the feet of the pastors.

After referring to the problem of establishing a truly Lutheranchurch in a new world where the spirit of separatism had com-bined with rampant individualism, enthusiasm, and religiouserror, Grabau based much of his argument in the Hirtenbriefupon AC XIV: “Concerning order in the church, it is taught thatno one should publicly teach or preach or distribute the sacra-ments without an orderly call [nisi rite vocatus].” Grabau nowpointed out that several men such as Gattel, Bauernmeister,Amereyn, and Roggenbuck, lay preachers coming from theMethodist and Baptist sects, were a threat to the Lutheran con-gregations. He referred particularly to the Holy Supper as belong-ing to “the priestly function of the office [of the ministry]” and

Grabau referred particularly to theHoly Supper as belonging to “thepriestly function of the office.”

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teach that every congregation or every group that falls awayfrom the true church and honors itself with the name ofcongregation can, as it wishes, raise up some man to thespiritual office from its own midst.

These words were likely intended for sectarians who blithelyturned their backs upon the traditional churches and thenclaimed to derive full authority from the new churches that theythemselves had founded. But in the situation of AmericanLutheranism in this statement hit a tender spot among Mis-souri Lutherans. They took this as a challenge, and their reply wasforthcoming.

The problems of adapting confessional Lutheranism to theAmerican frontier were enormous. Grabau wrestled deeplywith the problem of distinguishing form and substance. It may bethat he was too reluctant to give up the old, but it could also beargued that many of his opponents too easily labeled old-worldsubstance as mere form. We still need to engage in that struggle.In the past, we were too quick to label certain customs and prac-tices as adiaphora, only to discover that they belonged to the sub-stance of Lutheranism. Time has shown that past generationswere not critical enough in the necessary work of replacing theGerman language with English. In setting up a new theologicalvocabulary or terms used in the church service and in the adop-tion of hymns from the English repertory or in the translation ofLutheran hymns, mistakes were made. How much of the Germanor Scandinavian heritage could be abandoned, and how muchbelonged to the true and genuine substance of the faith?

PROBLEMS STEMMING FROM THE HISTORY OF THE MISSOURI SYNOD

When the Missouri Synod was organized in , the men sent byLöhe outnumbered the group led by Walther of Perry County,Missouri. The latter group had had difficult experiences. LeavingSaxony in –, they had envisioned a theocratic societyunder the leadership of Martin Stephan, to whom they had giventhe title of bishop. But such a merging of the two kingdomswould only lead to trouble. Already in May the colonists hadexpelled Stephan for moral and administrative misdeeds. Afterthe departure of Stephan, the pastors tried to continue his theo-cratic enthusiasm and rule of the colony. This led to a growingsplit between clergy and laity and to economic chaos. During thesearch for a new form of administering their religious and secularaffairs, a prominent layman and lawyer, Carl E. Vehse, developeda radical view in which he derived both church and ministry froma politicized concept of the priesthood of all believers. In thecontroversy that followed, Walther gradually took the lead in

present. Elders, however, should remember that they are notcompetent to judge doctrine. According to Timothy :,only the pastors are to serve as shepherds and watchmen.

Grabau devoted a special chapter to the subject “Regarding theNecessity of the Right Call.” He pointed out that Paul alwaysmentioned his credentials and described himself as one who hadbeen “called to be an apostle through the will of God.” Grabauwanted to emphasize that the pastoral call is not human butdivine. He stated:

God wills to deal with us on earth by means of the publicoffice of the church, and, by means of the same, to instruct,absolve, commune us, and the like. Therefore the churchmust have a certain and unmistakable witness that the per-son in the office is a minister who has been certified indivine order and according to the divine will. . . . Accord-ingly, the church has believed from oldest times that notonly the Words of Institution but also the right divine calland commission belong to the right administration of theholy sacraments and the dispensation of absolution; andeven if the person of the minister were evil, the Words ofInstitution are still effective on account of the office, towhich the Lord still commits himself. Christ lays his certifi-cation in the office and on absolution and the sacraments ashe once instituted them. He wills again and again to accom-plish this and to give his blessings by means of the Word thatis thereby used.

Here we have a truly Lutheran view of the Word as God’sreaching into human lives through the agency of earthly pastors.

In the third part, Grabau gives a lengthy presentation on “TheRight Understanding of the Doctrine of Filling the ChurchlyOffice in the Smalcald Articles.” He begins by asserting that theLutheran Church is identical to the old Roman Church, and thenrejects Roman Catholic teachings that restricted ordination to thepope and bishops. Contrary to those who charge him with cleri-calism and expect him to restrict the congregation (Gemeine, notGemeinde), he accuses the Roman bishops of excluding the peo-ple, and asserts:

The congregation must never be left out of the call (Wahl),election (Zustimmung), and prayer; only the pope removedfrom congregations the right to choose and elect, and he fillspastoral positions arbitrarily, on which account the pope is aspiritual and worldly tyrant.

Those who have not been properly called will become weak inthe trials of the ministry. But those who are assured that they havebeen called by God will comfort themselves and be built up byChrist’s promise: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end ofthe world” (Mt :).

Grabau leveled an attack at independentists or sectarians.

Here one must understand the right meaning of the fathersin the Smalcald Articles and not believe that the fatherswould have permitted such arbitrariness (Willkühr) as to

Grabau wrestled deeply with theproblem of distinguishing form and substance.

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distinction of the converted and the unconverted, which we havealready noted above.

An examination of the Augsburg Confession and the SmallCatechism leads us to a more accurate perception of the usage ofcongregatio in the Lutheran Confessions. We read in AC VII:

It is also taught among us that a holy, Christian church mustbe and remain at all times; this is the gathering of all believers,among whom the Gospel is purely preached and the holysacrament is given out in accord with the Gospel (German).

They teach that one holy church will remain forever.Moreover, the church is the gathering of the saints, in whichthe Gospel is purely taught and the sacraments are rightlyadministered (Latin).

Likewise, SC II (the Third Article) reads:

just like he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the wholeChristendom on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in theone true faith (German original).

just as he is wont to call the whole church on earth, togather, illuminate, sanctify it, and to preserve it in JesusChrist through the one true faith (Latin paraphrase).49

In the above examples from the Augsburg Confession and theSmall Catechism, congregatio means “gathering.” Walther trans-lated congregatio as Gesamtheit or “sum total.” Both translations,“gathering” or “sum total,” describe a coming together aroundword and sacrament. But when Walther chose the latter transla-tion, he unconsciously shifted from a word that described beingcalled as the work of the Holy Ghost (sammlet, congregare, “gath-ers”) to the coming together themselves by people upon the basisof a conscious decision to do so (as also Schleiermacher).

Another problem arises in Walther’s Thesis II: “No godlessone, no hypocrite, no unregenerate person, and no hereticbelongs to the church in its proper sense.” If the church, wherethe word is preached, is only for “converted” people, how canthe Holy Ghost carry out the work of sanctification that Lutheroutlined in the Catechism? Walther’s error here is in followingthe pietistic distinctions of before-and-after “conversion”:before “conversion” a person is unregenerate and a sinner, andafterward he is regenerate and no longer sins “willingly.” Thisconcept from pietism was unknown to Luther or Melanchthon.And the before-and-after distinction leaves little room forLuther’s concept of the believer as simul justus et peccator.Therefore this thesis militates against the proper distinction oflaw and gospel. In the Small Catechism, Luther called baptism“a washing of regeneration” (SC IV, ) with a reference to Titus:–. This means that everyone who has been baptized hasbeen regenerated. When Walther follows the pietistic distinc-tion of baptized members of the church and labels some regen-erate and others unregenerate, however, he introduces a pointof tension with Luther’s doctrine of baptism and with the Scrip-ture of Titus :–.

The problem is heightened when in Thesis III Walther followsthe concept that the church in its proper sense (im eigentlichenSinne des Wortes) is “invisible,” that is, that it is most properly a

what proved to be a moderation of the position of Vehse and thedevelopment of the concepts of church and ministry with a dom-inant congregation and a submissive clergy. Walther’s doctrineof church and ministry was a compromise that helped save theday for the beleaguered Saxons in Perry County, Missouri — buthow would it stand the test of time?

The situation in the city of Buffalo was completely differentfrom rural life in Perry County. Whereas Grabau was seeking tomaintain a distinct Lutheran identity in doctrine and practice inthe midst of a pluralistic American society, was faced with theneed to expose impostors who falsely claimed to be Lutheran pas-tors, and needed to find more truly Lutheran pastors to serve asleaders, the Saxons under Walther, with a plentiful supply of pas-tors, were trying to ensure the power of the laity and thesupremacy of the local congregation by the application of Ameri-can democratic principles. It was not surprising that, comingfrom opposite circumstances, they soon found themselves inopposing doctrine and practice.

THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN GRABAU AND WALTHER

Walther wrote his famous book on church and ministry, Kircheund Amt, as a polemical reply to Grabau’s Hirtenbrief. In the heatof the conflict Walther expressed some positions that become sub-ject to criticism when reviewed in the light of the Scriptures andthe Confessions. Walther’s volume was divided into two mainparts: the first on the church and the second on the ministry.

We shall begin with part of Kirche und Amt, the part on thechurch. Here we note that in Thesis I, Walther writes that thechurch, properly understood, is the congregation of the holy, thatis, the sum total (Gesammtheit) of all those who have been calledthrough the gospel out of the lost and condemned human race bythe Holy Ghost, who genuinely believe, and, through this faith,are sanctified and made to be one body with Christ. Walther, incalling the church the Gesammtheit or sum total of believers,appears to believe he is following the scriptural and confessionalusage of the word congregatio, but such an interpretation isfaulty. In a genuinely theocentric definition, Christ would bethe chief member of the church with the other members calledhis body. Walther presents an anthropocentric concept when thechurch is only a sum total. A sum total of what? Only of truebelievers. But what about Christ, the chief member of the church,which is his body? And what about those who are not perfect,those whom the Holy Ghost is accusing of sin by the law, and inwhom he is carrying on the work of sanctification as described inthe Third Article? Are they not part of the church? A little later,under Thesis II, we shall find Walther employing the old pietistic

Walther presents an anthropocentricconcept when the church is only asum total.

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Thus at the founding of the Missouri Synod Löhe was dis-turbed upon reading its new constitution. In a letter written toWalther he warned of democratic enthusiasm: “We fear, cer-tainly with a perfect right, that the fundamental strong mixingof democratic, independent, congregationalistic principles inyour constitution will cause great harm, just as the mixing in ofprinces and secular authorities has done much harm in ourown land.” Löhe admonished Walther that the MissouriSynod was building too much upon secular democratic ideas inAmerica and warned him that someday the lack of centralauthority would be deeply regretted. Löhe also criticized theconstitution of the Missouri Synod because it denied suffrageto clergy not serving congregations, such as seminary profes-sors and other theologians, thereby depriving the church of adecisive theological voice.

Löhe’s warnings were not groundless. Already in Walther’s day,lay people could not always be depended upon to vote for sounddoctrine and practice. And lately, a growing spirit of independen-tism has resulted recently in a serious decline in accountabilityand church discipline in the Missouri Synod. During the conflictsof the s Walther’s teaching did indeed come back to haunt thesynod, when congregations asserted their supremacy in mattersof doctrine and life, defied synodical discipline, and gave theirsupport to groups that rebelled against the synod. They justifiedthese measures by appealing to Walther’s doctrine of congrega-tional supremacy and autonomy.

Löhe’s comments were not welcome to the leaders of the newMissouri Synod, and, in order to avoid conflict, he turned over toMissouri the work he had begun among them and started a newmission field with the Iowa Synod. Nowhere was the balancestruck between the human and divine qualities of church andministry better than among the followers of Löhe who becamethe fathers of the Iowa Synod, particularly George and SigmundFritschel. In the Iowa Synod and its successor, the AmericanLutheran Church of , the constitution specified that thechurch consisted both of pastors and congregations, with safe-guards to provide for the best interests of both.

SOME CLOSING OBSERVATIONS

The Christological Problem The most damaging aspect of the transferal theory is the opin-

ion that the local congregation possesses the media salutis, theinstruments of salvation (means of grace). This is based upon thenotion that Christ is not really present in his church today (doc-trine of ubiquity in Luther and Brenz; doctrine of multivolipres-ence in Melanchthon and Chemnitz). A preacher in Erlangen

church without outward ceremonies such as preaching and thesacraments. We know of course that the roots of this notion of an“invisible church” lie in the Reformed theologians, who followedNeo-Platonic thinking with its dualism of the material and thespiritual. They consequently denied that a material thing, such asbread and wine, could convey a spiritual gift, such as the bodyand blood of Christ. Consequently, they held to a “Platonic” orspiritualized doctrine of the church and its ministry and the dis-tinction of a lower, visible church and a higher, invisible church.

It is hard to understand why this distinction was taken over byLutheran theologians in the later sixteenth century. It stood inserious tension with the Lutheran teaching of the preached wordand the sacraments (the media salutis), and it could only weakenLutheran dogmatics. Grabau vigorously rejected the notion thatthere were two churches, one visible and another invisible, andled his Missouri opponents to admit finally that there was onlyone church with visible and invisible characteristics.

One is disappointed when Walther carries these ideas to theirlogical conclusion in Thesis IX: for attaining salvation, it isunconditionally necessary to have fellowship only with the invisi-ble church, to which alone the wonderful promises originallywere given. This apparently means that the promise of salvationis given exclusively to the “invisible church,” that is, the one with-out the visible means of grace. Walther here makes a fatal state-ment when he relegates the word and sacrament to the “visiblechurch,” which is not necessary for salvation. Regardless of whathe says about the office of the ministry, the manner in which hehas compromised the means of grace has fatally weakened hisdoctrine of church and ministry. And since the doctrine of thetransferal of the “right” to administer word and sacrament is del-egated by the members of the congregation to their pastor, a syn-ergistic element is introduced into Walther’s doctrine of churchand ministry that is strangely at odds with his magnificent workThe Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel.

CRITICISMS OF WALTHER’S DOCTRINE FROM LÖHE

Wilhelm Löhe (–) was a remarkable man. As a youngvicar he was shunned by jealous colleagues and at last relegated tothe pastorate of the tiny rural village of Neuendettelslau. Not onlydid Löhe become an exemplary pastor who made importantdevelopments in catechesis and liturgics and whose powerfulpreaching drew listeners from great distances; not only did hefound a deaconess movement and establish schools, orphanages,and houses of mercy; not only did he take the lead as a Lutherantheological writer and secure the reform of the Protestant statechurch, so that Reformed and Lutheran congregations were sepa-rated and a discrete Confessional Lutheran Territorial Churchwas established; but in our context, it is most important to recallthat he established the “Society for Home and Foreign Missionsin the Spirit of the Lutheran Confessions,” under which hefounded a seminary for foreign missions. In his work with for-eign missions Löhe became the founder of the Lutheran Churchof Australia, of the Missouri Synod work in Michigan and Indi-ana, and of the Iowa Synod. From his mission seminary Löhe sentmany pastors and candidates of theology to America. In fact, atthe time the Missouri Synod was organized in , the majorityof its pastors had come from Löhe.

The roots of this notion of an “invisiblechurch” lie in the Reformed theologians,who followed Neo-Platonic thinking.

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Relationship of Church and Ministry to the “Royal Priesthood of All Believers”

The royal priesthood is commonly said by textbooks to havebeen one of the “three cardinal doctrines of the Reformation,”taking its place with justification by faith and the authority ofScripture. But was the doctrine of the royal priesthood of believ-ers really that prominent? It appeared in Luther’s early Reforma-tion treatises of , but after this it became increasingly scarce inhis writings. This concept hardly ever appeared in the writings ofthe second Lutheran reformer, Melanchthon, and is missing inthe Lutheran Confessions.

The royal priesthood of believers is the direct result of justifica-tion. It teaches that since Christ has atoned for us, we no longerneed a priest to intercede for us to the Father; all that separated usfrom God has been removed. The Old Testament priesthood hasbeen abolished; every believer is now his own priest and hasdirect access to God ( Pet :–). Unfortunately, this beautifuland meaningful concept has been taken from its rightful place inthe doctrine of justification and has been given political over-tones. It has been subjected to these two misuses: () it has beenplaced in rivalry with the office of the ministry and has been usedto promote the struggle of lay people against the clergy, and () ithas been used as the foundation for the doctrine of the ministry.This has happened in spite of the fact that the existence of thepriesthood feeds upon the ministry of word and sacrament, anddespite the difference between priesthood and ministry, as Lutherstrongly asserted: “It is true that all Christians are priests, but theyare not all pastors.”

In the struggles between Grabau and the Missouri Synod, bothsides erred in these regards. Grabau erred in trying to ascribe apriestly function to the pastoral office; and some on the opposingside erred when they claimed that the royal priesthood possessedthe right to preach or distribute the sacraments, and then, in atransferal theory, they delegated their “right” to the pastors.

Grabau had been disturbed by the tendency in the church onthe American frontier to have laymen exercise certain functions ofthe office of the ministry. He had attempted in the Hirtenbrief todeal with this problem on the basis of AC XIV, which states: “Noone should publicly teach or preach or distribute the sacramentsin the church without a regular call.” Grabau wrote that the Ger-man immigrants seemed to accept this principle with regard topublic teaching or preaching. The abuses came when impostorspretending to be Lutheran pastors presented themselves to admin-ister the sacraments. Grabau called this second function of theministry “the priestly function of the office.” As scriptural proof,he rather inappropriately cited Hebrews :: “And one does nottake the honor upon himself, but he is called by God, just as Aaronwas.” This verse actually taught the exclusiveness of Christ as thelast High Priest. Grabau erred when he used this verse to provethat the sacramental work of the ministerial office was a priestlyfunction. Nevertheless, Grabau was correct in insisting that ACXIV reserved the work of preaching and distributing the sacra-ments to the regularly called ministers.

Walther saw the error in Grabau at this point, so that he cor-rectly wrote in Thesis I of Part II of Kirche und Amt: “The holyoffice of preaching or the office of the pastor is a different officefrom the office of priest, which all believers possess.” But was

once told the congregation that at the Ascension Christ did notretire from his work as Savior in order to enter a well-deservedrest, as some imagined, but that Christ is still present in thechurch today. This reminds us that the doctrine of church andministry must be connected directly with Christ.

Lutheran Christology is violated when it is taught that Christ isno longer active but has given word and sacrament as some sortof earthly possession. Unfortunately, Pieper insisted in regard tothe pastoral office:

The word and sacrament, in which they minister, are andremain the immediate property (Eigentum) of the congrega-tion, and merely the administration of them in the name ofall is delegated (übertragen) to these certain persons by thecongregation.

The notion that Christ has given the means of grace to the con-gregation so that they are a static possession or Eigentum of thecongregation, who then transfer this possession to “their” pastor,brings us uncomfortably close to the Reformed assumption of the“real absence” rather than the real presence of Christ.

In Lutheran thinking, word and sacrament come directly fromChrist. In his baptismal hymn, Luther sings that when the pastorpours on water, it is really God who baptizes. When the pastordistributes the sacramental species, Christ is truly there with hisbody and blood. The words of the sermon are the words of Godhimself, speaking through the lips of his earthen vessel, thepreacher. Luther declared in a sermon that when a persondoubted whether the pastor could give him a valid absolution, heshould be taught to say:

Neither the preacher nor any other person absolved me; itwas not the parson (Pfarrherr) who taught me to believe it.But God spoke through him and did this thing; of this I amcertain. For my Lord Christ ordered that this be done andsaid: “As the Father hath sent me, so also send I you” (WA: , –).

Therefore word and sacrament are not the property either of thecongregation or of the pastoral office, but remain in Christ’shands. There is no room for a transferal view of the ministry.Christ is not absent. He has not abdicated, nor turned over hiswork of mediation to the congregation. The people have nothingto transfer to the pastor that Christ cannot give and does not giveto them through the pastor in a better way. Christ, who sent thefirst apostles by his own authority and in his own name, stillsends his ministers directly today. The christological character ofchurch and ministry must be preserved.

In Lutheran thinking, word and sacra-ment come directly from Christ.

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practice. The keys were given to the spiritual, not to thepolitical governance. “There you have the true spiritual gover-nance, which one must separate as far from the political gover-nance as heaven and earth are far from each other. Now thosewho are in such a spiritual governance are true kings, trueprinces, true lords, and they must rule.” It is the task of theministers to forgive or retain sin. But in case of an emergency,also a layman can share the gospel and announce the forgive-ness of sins. Luther did not say that a layman can do thisbecause the keys have been given to all but ordained ministers,nor can they do this because they are members of the priest-hood of believers, but because the gospel has been committedto all Christians. This announcement belongs to the spiritual,not to the civil governance. And although the spiritual gover-nance belongs principally to ordained ministers, the spiritualrule is shared also by parents and even magistrates, insofar asthey are believers and share the gospel with those with whomthey have to deal.

CONCLUSION

It is a pity that the doctrinal debates between Missouri and Buf-falo were carried out in a kind of win-or-lose approach, ratherthan the humble attitude that both parties were in search of puredoctrine and might learn from each other. In the end, it wasGrabau who “lost,” and it appeared as though this proved that histheocentric views of church and ministry were wrong and thoseof Missouri were consequently right. But this common assump-tion needs to be questioned. And in defense of Grabau and theposition of the Buffalo Synod, it must be admitted that the lead-ers of the Missouri Synod sometimes overpowered Buffalo witharguments that were less consistent with confessional Lutherantheology than those of Grabau.

Walther was not so radical as those in the Missouri Synod wholater reinterpreted his writings to achieve their political goals. Forexample, his concept of the congregation was not as narrow asthat of his later followers. We should note that when Waltherspoke of his congregation at St. Louis, he was speaking of thetotality or three or four parishes, a Gesamtgemeinde. He did notharbor an independentistic concept, nor did he favor the isola-tionism of the congregation from the synod. Rather, he expectedcongregations to work together and share.

Unfortunately, Walther’s position came more and more to beinterpreted by some of his followers according to democraticenthusiasm and the views of Schleiermacher: the church as thecoming together of like-minded individuals who form a localcongregation and then transfer to one of their number the “right”to administer word and sacrament. The warnings of Grabau and

the priesthood of believers really an “office” in the church? And,although Walther was right in denying that the transferal of thepastoral office was derived from the priesthood of believers, howcould one separate the priesthood of believers from the congrega-tion, which allegedly conferred “its possession,” the instrumentsof salvation (media salutis) upon “its pastor”? If they claimed thatthe right to preach, teach, and administer the sacraments hadbeen given to all believers as the “church” (they meant “congrega-tion”!), and that the congregation in turned delegated this “right”to the pastors, whom they themselves chose and called, were theynot committing the same error as Grabau in considering theoffice of word and sacrament to be a priestly function? As bothWalther and Pieper taught, it is better that the office of the min-istry be kept distinct from the doctrine of the royal priesthood ofbelievers. But neither was successful.

To Whom Is the Office of the Keys Given?

There is much ambiguity in Lutheran theology about thekeys. In the expression “office of the keys,” the word office canonly refer to the office of the ministry. The keys, which are givento that office, are synonymous with preaching, the sacraments,and absolution. These are given, in the first place, to the church,especially in its local form, the congregation. Luther assigned thekeys both to the clergy and the laity. For him, the primary fatherconfessor was the pastor; but in an emergency, any Christiancould hear confession and bestow forgiveness upon his fellowbeliever. Nevertheless, just as lay preaching is only the exception,so hearing of confession and bestowal of absolution by lay peoplehas never been more than an occasional action. And the solemnpractice of confession and absolution, revived in the nineteenthcentury under Löhe and Grabau, has largely disappeared today,in spite of the fact that it is advocated in the Catechism and theother Confessions.

The Saxon immigrants in Missouri evidently intended to setup a theocracy under Stephan, in which the clergy would rulethe secular as well as the spiritual aspects of life in the colony.When Stephan was deposed, Walther and the other remainingpastors tried to preserve the theocracy, seemingly oblivious tothe fact that a theocracy confounds the two kingdoms, secularand spiritual. When they were forced to give in to the demandsof the laity for a democratic system, theocracy was replaced by anew version of caesaropapacy: the spiritual governance wasplaced under the laity. In practice, the priesthood of believerswas politicized. In the years that followed, the laity were able tocontrol the clergy, so that their prophetic voice was stifled. Thesolution needed was the proper application of the two king-doms structure.

This inevitably brought with it the functional loss of the officeof the keys, their use as applied to the pastoral office. Althoughthe synodical catechism retained the portion on the Office of theKeys, it has played little role in the recent history of the MissouriSynod. Pieper in his dogmatics ignored the office of the keys andspoke only of the priestly keys given to all Christians.

In commenting on John : (“As my Father hath send me,even so send I you”), Luther said that with these words Christcommitted the office of preaching to the disciples and broughtthe passion and resurrection of Christ into its right use and

In the expression “office of the keys,”the word office can only refer to theoffice of the ministry.

nb

. At the formation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America(ELCA), it was said that the new church would follow the “traditionalLutheran doctrine of church and ministry.” But such a consensus hasnever existed. Kurt Marquart describes four distinct types among whichone must decide: the types of the Eastern Orthodox and the RomanCatholic, on the one hand, and the types of the Lutheran and Reformed,on the other hand. Kurt Marquart, The Church and Her Fellowship, Min-istry, and Governance, Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics , ed. Robert D.Preus and John R. Stephenson (Fort Wayne, IN: International Foundationfor Lutheran Confessional Research, ), –. But Marquart overlooksthe fact that Lutheranism has at least two distinct and opposite types, atheocentric and an anthropocentric view of church and ministry.

. Ernst Kinder, Der evangelische Glaube und der Kirche (Berlin:Lutherisches Verlagshaus, ), , n. . Kinder refers to the Swedish the-ologian Holsten Fagerberg, Bekenntnis, Kirche und Amt in der deutschenkonfessionellen Theologie des . Jahrhundert (Uppsala: A. B. LundequistskaBokhandeln, ), especially ff., ff., ff., ff., ff., ff.

. The theocentric foundation of the church is stressed in the essays bySwedish theologians as edited by Anders Nygrén, This Is the Church, trans.Carl C. Rasmussen (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, ). See especiallyessays by two New Testament scholars: Anton Fridrichsen, “The New Tes-tament Congregation,” –, and Hugo Odeberg, ”The Individualism ofToday and the Concept of the Church in the New Testament,” –.

. Grabau made a strong case that the office of the keys belongs to thepastoral office and not the congregation as such, citing AC XXVIII, : “Thepower of the keys or of the bishops is a power and command of God inaccord with the gospel to preach the gospel, forgive and retain sins, and todistribute and administer the sacrament. For Christ sent out the apostleswith this command” (author’s translation of BSLK, ). Cf. Tappert,–. The statement of Grabau is in Kirchliches Informatorium , no. (Sept. , ): –.

. In the congregational constitution of Grabau’s Trinity Old LutheranChurch, Buffalo, it was stated that the office of the keys, as discussed inMatthew : ff., belonged to the pastoral office (Art. III, §), but thatMatthew :, “If he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or twomore, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may beestablished,” applied to the office of church director (Kirchenvorsteher) orelder (Art IV, §). Reprinted in Christian Otto Kraushaar, Verfassungsfor-men der Lutherischen Kirche Amerikas (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, ),. Walther of the Missouri Synod, however, thought that the office ofthe keys was given not only to the pastors but also to the entire priesthoodof believers, that is, to the lay members as well. Yet although the keys weregiven to all, the office of the keys was exercised only by the pastors.

. Against recent opportunistic interpretations that turn the words ofChrist in Acts into a general exhortation to everybody to do evangelism,we insist that these words were spoken only to the disciples, who weredirect eyewitnesses of his death and resurrection. Our doctrine rests uponthe unique witness of the New Testament apostles who had seen him dieon the cross and then saw him again after the resurrection. An eyewitnessis someone who was there.

When we tell others “What Jesus means to me,” this is not an apostolicwitness but a personal testimony. When we elevate the testimony of ourown religious experience to the level of apostolic authority, we degrade theapostolic basis upon which the sacred Scriptures are built. And when weundercut the holy office of preaching and absolution, we deny what the

scriptural teaching of Luther and the Confessions said about the faith thatcomes from hearing the Word of God (Rom :).

. Regarding these medieval historical writers, see Wilhelm Watten-bach and Robert Holtzmann, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelal-ter: Die Zeit der Sachsen und Salier, part : Das Zeitalter des Investiturstreits(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, ). See especiallyManegold of Lautenbach, –, and Siegbert of Gembloux, –and –. Manegold is regarded as the first in the middle ages to pro-pound the concept of popular sovereignty. For a discussion of these menin English, see James Westfall Thompson and Bernard J. Holm, A Historyof Historical Writing, vol. (New York: Macmillan, ), –.

. Regarding the relation between Luther and his medieval predeces-sors on the doctrine of church and ministry, see Werner Elert,“Lutherische Grundsätze für die Kirchenverfassung” (), reprinted inEin Lehrer der Kirche: Kirchlich-theologische Aufsätze und Vorträge vonWerner Elert, ed. Max Keller-Hüschemenger (Berlin: Lutherisches Ver-lagshaus, ): –. On the gradual development of Luther’s doctrineof church and ministry after , see my article “Changes in Luther’s Doc-trine of the Ministry,” Lutheran Quarterly (): –. Marquartstaunchly denies that there were differences in the early and the matureLuther; in The Church, –.

. The societal structure of Leisnig is discussed in Otto Clemen, ed.,Luthers Werke in Auswahl (Berlin: Walter DeGruyter, ), : , foot-note.

. “Primum igitur officium, nempe verbi ministerium, esse omnibusChristianis commune . . .” WA : , –.

. “ministerium verbi summum in Ecclesia officium esse prorsusunicum et omnibus commune, qui Christiani sunt, non modo iure, set etpraecepto.” WA : , –.

. It is important to note the following conditions that must be recog-nized by those who would cite Luther in support of a transferal view. ()Any such tendencies in Luther tended to disappear after and to bereplaced by a strongly theocentric view of church and ministry. () In hisearlier writings, Luther intended to say that, in extreme cases such as Leis-nig and Prague, the congregation could function without the Romanbishop, not because it was a local congregation, but because it was a part ofthe total church and bore the marks of the church as a whole. He was notadvocating independentism or religious separatism, unlike the EnglishCongregationalists, whose thinking proved irresistible to the GermanLutheran immigrants in America. () In his mature writings, when Luthersays Gemeine, he thinks of the church in a wider sense than any one localparish. It is erroneous when Pieper, in interpreting Luther, understandsGemeine as Gemeinde in the sense of the autonomous American congrega-tion. This kind of ecclesial body was unknown to Luther. () Much latertransferal theology tends to be synergistic, when it says that the congrega-tion “possesses” or has “rights” to the means of grace. This conflicts withthe spiritual dependence taught in the Third Article of the Small Cate-chism. See also my remarks below, “The Christological Problem.”

. See Elert, “Luthers Grundsätze,” –.. Edmund Schlink, Theologie der lutherischen Bekenntnisschriften

(Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, ): –.. Grabau published the following statement of Löhe: “In that they

[Missouri] derive the pastoral office from the spiritual priesthood of allChristians and see it as an authorization committed to the congregations,and teach accordingly, they place into the hands of their congregations

NOTES

part of the heritage of the Lutheran churches in America. TheLutheran Church today must rid herself of sociological and politi-cal notions of church and ministry, no matter who held these inthe past, and must return to the clear teaching of the sacred Scrip-tures and the Lutheran Confessions. She must turn to a theocen-tric doctrine and practice of church and ministry. “For there is oneLord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who isabove all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph :–). LOGIA

Löhe against permitting democratic ideas to color ecclesiologyseemed unpopular and unsuitable in the land of Jeffersoniandemocracy. But in the last decade of the twentieth century, prob-lems of church and ministry, considered all too hastily in the pre-vious century, are haunting the various Lutheran churches inAmerica. We need to listen to Grabau and Löhe again.

Both anthropocentric and theocentric views of church andministry, coming from Walther and Grabau as well as Löhe, are a

Saxe-Gotha, in theological and scientific scholarship, and in church musicand the arts. See my articles “The Education of Women in the Reforma-tion,” History of Education Quarterly (Spring ): –, and “DukeErnest I of Saxe-Gotha: A Seventeenth-Century Prince of Luther’s ‘Christ-ian Nobility,’” Cresset (March ): –.

. I own a copy of the following edition of the Union Church Agenda:Agende für die evangelische Kirche in den Königlich Preußischen Landen. Mitbesonderen Bestimmungen und Zusätzen für die Provinz Sachsen (Berlin:Dietericischen Buchdruckerei, ). Since this is the edition that wasprinted for the Province of Saxony, where Grabau served, this is theagenda that brought about his imprisonment and eventual migration toBuffalo.

. RE : .. Two hundred years earlier, Landgrave Moritz the Learned of Hes-

sen, who had converted from Lutheranism to Calvinism, had sent soldiersto seize St. Mary Lutheran Church in Marburg and had the soldiers forcethe Lutheran people with sabers to receive communion according to theReformed manner. When pastors and people resisted the Reformed prac-tice of breaking the communion bread, Moritz ordered the bakers to putpieces of iron into the wafers so that the people would be required to breakthem. See “Verbesserungspunkte,” RE : –. On the violence usedto convert Germany to Calvinism and the communion wafer story, seeHans Preuß, Von den Katakomben bis zu den Zeichen der Zeit: Der Weg derKirche durch zwei Jahrtausend (Rothenburg ob der Tauber: Martin Luther-Verlag, ), –.

. RE : .. It might be said that church law is a safeguard against the machina-

tions of church politicians that we lack in America, where synod presi-dents, district presidents, or “bishops” sometimes take the liberty, ad hoc,to create their own laws.

. For a study of the Prussian refugees in Buffalo by a social historian,see David A. Gerber, “The Pathos of Exile: Old Lutheran Refugees in theUnited States and South Australia,” Comparative Studies in Society andHistory. An International Quarterly , no. (): –. Gerber is aprofessor in the history department of the State University of New York atBuffalo. Theological aspects are treated in Confessional Lutheran Migra-tions to America: th Anniversary (Buffalo: Eastern District of TheLutheran Church—Missouri Synod, ). The principle author is EugeneW. Camann; others include Karl and LaVerne Boehmke, Hellen MuellerUlrich, Walter H. Koenig, Albert H. Gaal, and Karl and Marie Brenner.

. In the last part of his Hirtenbrief Grabau discussed liturgical mat-ters. He defended the use of candles and the crucifix on the altar, makingthe sign of the cross, the chanting by the pastor of the collects and theblessing, and the chanting by the congregation of the responses. Regardingchanting in general, he stated: “Singing is always more inspirational thatreading.” Referring to Paul in Corinthians , he reminded that Paul didnot speak of reading psalms but of singing psalms. “Therefore, the churchis right when it chants psalms at the altar or allows singing, and when itselfsings the ‘Amen’ to such chanting” (). He insisted: “The sign of the crossin the true church is not a sign of magic or witchcraft, but a memorial signand a confessional sign, as the ancient church practiced it before the ori-gins of the papacy. The crucifix or the portrait of the crucified Christ is nota picture for adoration or veneration, but rather a public confessionalexpression of the church, that the crucified and ever-present Christ who ispictured before her is present in Word and sacrament, and that he is herfoundation, her head, and her hope” (–). At a time when candles wereregarded as “Romish,” Grabau defended the use of altar candles on thegrounds that they refer back to the night in which Christ was betrayed andinstituted the Holy Supper. Our salvation is not dependent upon keepingthese practices, but so long as they are not contrary to the Scriptures, theycan be helpful to souls and should therefore be retained.

. The title of Grabau’s hymnal was Evangelisch-Lutherisches Gesang-Buch worin der gebräuchlichsten alten Kirchen-Lieder Dr. MartinLutheri und anderer reinen Lehrer und Zeugen Gottes zur Beförderung derwahren Gottseligkeit ohne Abänderungen enthalten sind, für Gemeinen,welche sich zur unveränderten Augsburgischen Confession und den übrigenSymbolen der Kirche bekennen. My copy is the th ed., Buffalo: Reinecke &Zesch, n.d. Regarding Grabau’s liturgical and hymnological work, see Karl

that democratic superior power which helps nobody. If the sheep canchoose their own shepherd, or can remove, forsake, or denounce him,they will only be able to be pastured as their itching ears direct, and at lastthey will feed themselves, i.e., not be fed at all, ever remaining unshep-herded flocks, in spite of all the shepherds. The American pastors aremuch to blame for this development. To be sure, Pastor Grabau at Buffalohas challenged the doctrine of the Missourians on the pastoral office asthey base it on the authority of Luther, and he has opened a powerfuldebate in writing. But this controversy, passionately carried on from bothsides, is sad, especially since Pastor Grabau in several instances also dis-closes questionable positions.” Kirchliches Informatorium , no. (July ,): . Grabau also cited the following from an essay of Löhe: “If onlyfrom the beginning we had placed less confidence upon the growing expe-rience of our brethren and made stronger opposition, we should not sharethe blame when today it is thrown up to Grabau things which must turnpale in the light of the divine Word. . . . I cannot avoid expressing the fearthat the Missouri Synod would not have experienced so great an outwardgrowth if it had not been willing to present a doctrine of the pastoral officewhich was very comfortable to American thinking.” Ibid., .

. For Vilmar’s views on church and ministry, see the article byJohannes Haußleiter in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie undKirche [hereafter abbreviated RE] (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, ), : ,–; cf. , –, .

. See Haack’s article on Kliefoth, RE : –, and especially thischaracterization: “With great energy he emphasized the divine founding ofthe church through the salvific deeds of the triune God, its divine founda-tion in the ongoing work of Christ and his Spirit, mediated and guaran-teed in the means of grace, the divine institution of the office of the meansof grace, and the necessity of the organization and incorporation of thechurch in church order and church government. Without denying the dis-tinction in the congregation between the coetus vocatorum [gathering ofthe called] and the vere credentium [gathering of true believers], he builthis definition of the church out of the empirical coetus vocatorum. Forhim, the church is not an isolated and atomistic concept, consisting onlyof completely similar individual congregations of saints, but a livingorganism, for which the dualism of church and congregation, teachers andlisteners, those who rule and those who obey, is basic. She is an historicalphenomenon above every individual congregation. She is the institutionof salvation where God wrestles with what is bad in the souls and bestowsthe salvation of the world . . . . The territorialism of the omnipotent statewhich denied the independence of the church, as well as the collegialism offolk sovereignty, as they were growing upon Reformed ground, whichseemed to him to endanger the office of the means of grace, the unionismwhich wanted to absorb the Lutheran Church and threatened its confes-sion . . . these were the foes against which he fought, while his goals werethe restoration of the Lutheran Territorial Churches and the strengtheningof Lutheranism by a closer working together.” Ibid., –.

. See Gottfried Fritschel, “Die Lehre der Buffalo Synode von derKirche.” Kirchliche Zeitschrift (): –. Fritschel provided manycitations from the writings of Grabau and the Buffalo Synod to support hismoderate criticisms of their positions. Particularly he criticized the claimof Grabau that it is necessary to belong to the Lutheran Church to besaved. The Fritschels were personally acquainted with Grabau, for Sig-mund and Gottfried, with their parents, had been guests in the home ofGrabau in Buffalo in , and Sigmund had served as pastor of a BuffaloSynod church in Detroit for two years. See Sigmund Fritschel, “Zur Erin-nerung an Gottfried Leonhard Wilhelm Fritschel,” Kirchliche Zeitschrift (): . Wilhelm Löhe had firmly insisted that a Christian may besaved even if he is a member of a heterodox church. See his Three Booksabout the Church, trans. James L. Schaaf (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,), –.

. See Oliver K. Olson, “Theology of Revolution: Magdeburg,–,” Sixteenth Century Journal (April ): –.

. At times the princes showed a sincere interest for true reform andthe readiness to make wise provision for the church, providing excellentleadership in what is called the Golden Age of Lutheranism (–).Great advances were made in church life and popular education undersuch men as Duke Christopher of Württemberg and Ernest the Devout of

the media saluti. In contrast, the word “worship” was commonly used inEnglish-speaking churches with Arminian doctrine and practice, in whichthe “worshiper” had the need to secure the favor of an angry God byascribing the highest “worthship” to the deity. Thus when the Germanword Gottesdienst, a divine activity, was translated with the English word“worship,” a human activity, a shift in theological understanding was theunfortunate result. Another example is king. The word king rarely occursin German hymns. But translations of German hymns often inserted thisword to rhyme with sing or ring. This addition sometimes introduceduncomfortable associations with the Calvinistic concept of “sovereignLord” or the Roman concept of “Christ the King.” Every generation mustreview this process and decide where it shall take its stand in harmonywith the Scriptures and the Confessions.

. On the difficulties in the Saxon colony in Missouri, and their shiftfrom a “hierarchical” to a transferal doctrine of church and ministry, seeWalter O. Forster, Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the SaxonLutherans in Missouri – (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,), especially –. On the early development in the Missouri Synod,see Carl S. Meyer, ed., Letters of C. F. W. Walther (Philadelphia: FortressPress, ), –. A number of sources with helpful historical introduc-tions are given in Carl S. Meyer, ed., Moving Frontiers: Readings in the His-tory of the Lutheran Church —Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Pub-lishing House, ). See also the important monograph by MartinSchmidt, Wort Gottes und Fremdlingschaft (Erlangen: Martin Luther Ver-lag, ). In the appendix Schmidt reprints “Wilhelm Löhes Zuruf aus derHeimat an die deutsch-luth. Kirche Nordamerikas,” together with the sig-natures of the friends in Germany.

. Marquart, The Church, –, is not successful when he tries toprove that the term Übertragung did not really mean “transferal” but“conferral.” The German preposition über is related to the Latin trans, notcum, and this usage was intentional by the theologians who employed it.Marquart wants to deny that Missouri did in fact teach such a transferal(). But see the example in Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, vols. +index vol., trans. Theodore Engelder et al. (St. Louis: Concordia Publish-ing House, –), : –, where, pursuing an obscure remark ofLuther, Pieper claims that a missionary coming into a new pagan land hasno “office of preaching” until he has won converts. Only after they haveorganized a Missouri Synod-style congregation that can give him a calldoes he has a true call to ministry, given him by the transferal of congrega-tional authority to him. I have discussed these matter at greater length inmy Adventures in Law and Gospel: Lectures in Lutheran Dogmatics (FortWayne, IN: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, ), – and–.

. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther, Die Stimme unserer Kirche in derFrage von Kirche und Amt. Eine Sammlung von Zeugnissen über diese Frageaus den Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche und aus demPrivatschriften rechtgläubiger Lehrer derselben. Von der deutschen evangel.-luth. Synode von Missouri, Ohio und anderen Staaten als ein Zeugnisihres Glaubens, zur Abwehr der Angriffe des Herrn P. Grabau in Buffalo,N.Y. Zwickau: Verlag des Schriftenvereins der sep. evangel.-luth. Gemein-den in Sachsen (Leipzig: A. Deichert Verlag, ); my copy is the th ed.,.

. Walther, Kirche und Amt, .. Walther’s understanding of scriptural and confessional teachings

on church and ministry was hindered by his tendency to understand thecommunio sanctorum in the Apostles’ Creed as a definition of the church,which he considered to be the sum total of believers, rather than the gath-ering of believers (SC II, Third Article). This made it difficult for him toavoid a sociological or democratic doctrine of church and ministry or toavoid the trap of social contract thinking.

. The Swedish New Testament scholar Hugo Odeberg protests at theover-individualization of the church by which one understands it only asthe sum total of its members. He describes such a view as follows: onegathers branches from the east and west, from the north and south, heapsthem together, and says, “This heap is the church.” What is wrong? heasks. Answer: there is no real connection between that heap and Christ.Hence there is no explanation of its life and being. Odeberg writes: “Thefact that must not be overlooked is precisely this, that it is Christ, the living

and Marie Brenner, “J. A. A. Grabau: The Restoration of Orthodox Wor-ship,” in Confessional Lutheran Migrations to America, –.

. One commonly hears pastors from Germany charged with havingbeen conceited because they expected to be called “Herr Pastor.” Suchcharges display the ignorance of those who make them. It is a courtesy ofthe German language that every adult male is addressed as Herr, the equiv-alent to Mr. Thus a carpenter is addressed as “Herr Zimmermann,” ablacksmith as “Herr Schmied,” the waiter as “Herr Ober,” or a cobbler as“Herr Schuster.” Likewise, women are addressed as Frau, as “Frau Bäck-erin” or “Frau Lehrerin.” The time is long overdue to quit accusing first-generation pastors of pridefulness because they expected to be addressedas “Herr Pastor” and instead to recognize this as a linguistic matter.

. I used the following copy: Der Hirtenbrief des Herrn Pastors Grabauzu Buffalo vom Jahre . Nebst den zwischen ihn und mehrerenlutherischen Pastoren von Missouri gewechselten Schriften, ed. GottholdHeinrich Löber of Altenburg, Mo. (New York: H. Ludwig Co., ). TheHirtenbrief is reprinted in this work, –. The copy that I used had beenbound at the end of the Notwehrblatt, –, ed. Friederich Lochner.Since this document is hard to find, I not only express my thanks to theowner, but supply his name and address as follows: Mr. Eugene W.Camann, Luther St., Niagara Falls, New York . Camann is oneof the principle writers in the book Confessional Lutheran Migrations toAmerica, noted above.

. Hirtenbrief, .. Although his point was worth consideration, his proof-texting

from the Ap XIV was not valid. He quoted the Apology as follows: “Wirhaben uns etliche Male auf dem Reichstage von der Sache hoeren lassen,dass wir geneigt sind, alte Kirchenordnung zu erhalten.” Compare BSLK,. Grabau was misquoting his source when he used it as a proof-text forthe retention of old Lutheran church orders of the sixteenth century. Theterm that he cited, alte Kirchenordnung, was the German translation forthe original Latin text, which read ecclesiasticam disciplinam, meaning“church discipline” or “church polity,” a reference to the Roman canonlaw. In the succeeding lines, Melanchthon expressed the willingness of theLutherans to subject themselves to the bishops and canon law, a willing-ness that had been frustrated by the corruption of the bishops, who them-selves did not follow the laws of the church. Although Grabau’s citation ofAp XIV did not support his case, his appeal to study the church orders waswell taken. Later generations, which have been careless in studying the six-teenth-century church orders, which also include the Lutheran Confes-sions, have missed important guidance for the life of their churches.

. Hirtenbrief, –.. Ibid., –.. Ibid., –.. Ibid., –.. Ibid., –.. Ibid., .. Ibid., .. Grabau criticized the pietistic tendency to reduce the church to

individual Christians and then claim that each individual possessed theoffice of the keys instead of the ordained clergy. “This lax separatistic ten-dency carries with it a terrible fragmentation of the church, in that it seeksthe location and residence of the keys no longer in the true ecclesiasticalgathering in Jesus’ name (Mt :).” He adds that the Smalcald Articlesapply Peter :, to the “true church” or “gathering in the name ofJesus,” and not to the individual in accordance with his personal state ofgrace. Kirchliches Informatorium , no. (Sept. , ): .

. The noted secular historian Frederick Jackson Turner developedthe controversial thesis that American culture, beliefs, and institutionswere the result of the interplay of European tradition with the situation onthe American frontier. Although I do not accept Turner’s thesis as univer-sally valid, it really does express the problem that our fathers experiencedwhen they tried to plant the Lutheran faith in a new world.

. Part of the problem of Americanization lay in adopting the Englishlanguage, in which theological substance at times was misinterpreted. Anexample of the difficulty in translating from German into English is foundwith the word Gottesdienst, literally “God’s service.” This word recognizesthat God is the subject and not the object, and that the principle means are

schließlichen Erklärungen der die Synode von Buffalo und die von Missouri,Ohio u. a. Staaten vertretenden Colloquenten über die bisher zwischen beidenSynoden streitigen und besprochen Lehreren (St. Louis: Aug. Wiebusch u.Sohn, ), .

. Walther, Kirche und Amt, .. Although he also used this problematic terminology, Wilhelm

Löhe avoided the trap Walther fell into of seeming to have two churches,but carefully preserved the identity of the visible and invisible church. Hewrote: “All those who belong to the invisible church also belong to the vis-ible one and by their words and deeds confess what God has put into theirhearts.” Three Books, . On the problem as to whether the church is visi-ble or invisible, Schaaf in a footnote, ibid., points to the presentation inHolsten Fagerberg, Bekenntnis, Kirche und Amt, –. After insistingthat both the church visible and invisible are but one church, Löhe adds:“In short, the visible church is the tabernacle of God among men, and out-side it there is no salvation. A man separates himself from God the Fatherif he separates from the church, his mother. He separates himself from theeternal bridegroom if he separates from the bride of Christ. He losesChrist’s spirit if he tears himself from his body. As a man stands in relationto the church, so he stands in relation to his God.” Three Books, .

. Meyer, Moving Frontiers, , n. . One might comment on Löhe’swarning by noting that, in fact, the rule of the German church by the layprinces was replaced in America with the rule by the lay voters assembliesand church councils. This was a reincarnation of that mixing of the twokingdoms which had taken place within the state churches. This writerknows of Missouri Synod churches where the lay leaders interfere in theo-logical and pastoral matters, such as forbidding their pastor to practiceclosed communion. See also “Löhe’s Heartbreaking Farewell,” letter ofAug. , , as he peacefully turned over his congregations in northernMichigan to the Missouri Synod, in Meyer, Moving Frontiers, –. Sev-eral times Löhe spoke out in favor of Grabau, and once expressed regretthat he had not tried harder to move Missouri from the course that it took.Grabau cited Löhe as follows: “This separatistic tendency which destroysthe church has left its stamp in the Missouri Synod to the dishonor of theLutheran Church. Contrariwise, the symbolical books are above suchdestructive separatism; they consider the entire church as the gathering inthe name of Jesus, and therein especially the preaching office with thegospel as the seat and residence of the Keys.” Kirchliches Informatorium (): .

. The heritage of the Iowa Synod was lost when the AmericanLutheran Church of declared in its constitution that the church con-sisted only of congregations. Thereby pastoral conferences were abolishedand replaced by conferences of congregations, and the theological founda-tions were irreparably damaged. This unfortunate step helped prepare forthe developments in doctrine and practice of the subsequent EvangelicalLutheran Church in America. See my article “Toward an EvangelicalUnderstanding of the Lutheran Confessions,” Lutheran Quarterly ():–.

. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, : ; for the original German, seeFranz Pieper, Christliche Dogmatik, vols. + index vol. (St. Louis: Concor-dia Publishing House, –), : .

. The original German text of Luther’s “Christ, unser Herr, zum Jor-dan kam” is given in Karl Eduard Philipp Wackernagel, Das DeutscheKirchenlied von Martin Luther bis auf Nicolaus Herman und AmbrosiusBlauer (Stuttgart: S. G. Liesching, ), –. (My copy of Wackernageloriginally belonged to Sigmund Fritschel.) A modernization of the Ger-man original and an English translation by Richard Massie, alt., “To Jor-dan came our Lord the Christ,” are given in The Hymns of Martin Luther,ed. Leonard Woolsey Bacon and Nathan H. Allen (New York: CharlesScribner’s Sons, ), , #. This version was reprinted in EvangelicalLutheran Hymn-Book (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, ), #.A less literal translation by Elizabeth Quitmeyer, alt., “To Jordan came theChrist, our Lord,” is given in Lutheran Worship (St. Louis: Concordia Pub-lishing House, ), #. Closer to Luther is the translation by HermannBrueckner in American Lutheran Hymnal (Columbus, ), #. OnlyMassie and Brueckner translated the last verse of st. , “[Gott] is alhie derTauffer,” “[God] is the true Baptizer.” No translator has given a literal ren-dition of these words from st. : “Das wir nicht sollen zweifeln dran,/ wenn

actual Christ, in whom the church has its origin.” Hugo Odeberg, “TheIndividualism of Today and the Concept of the Church in the New Testa-ment,” in Nygrén, ed., This is the Church, . Like Elert, Odeberg insiststhat the church is best described as the body of Christ, with our Lord as itsprincipal member. This aspect is lacking in Walther’s doctrine.

. Here are the original texts. AC VII (German): “Es wird auchgelehret, daß alle Zeit musse ein heilige christliche Kirche sein und bleiben,welche ist die Versammlung aller Glaubigen, bei welchen das Evangeliumrein gepredigt und die heiligen Sakrament lauts des Evangelii gereicht wer-den.” AC VII (Latin): “Item docent, quod una sancta ecclesia perpetuomansura sit. Est autem ecclesia congregatio sanctorum, in qua evangeliumpure docetur et recte administratur sacramenta” (BSLK, ). SC II , (Ger-man original): “gleichwie er die ganze Christenheit auf Erden berueft,sammlet, erleucht, heiliget und bei Jesu Christo erhält im rechten einigenGlauben.” SC II , (Latin paraphrase): “quemadmodum solet totam eccle-siam in terra vocare, congregare, illuminare, sanctificare et in Jesu Christoper rectam unicam fidem conservare” (BSLK, ). Emphasis added.

. The problem of whether communio sanctorum presents a genitiveof persons (the church) or a genitive of things (the sacrament) is thor-oughly discussed in Werner Elert, Eucharist and Church Fellowship in theFirst Four Centuries, trans. Norman E. Nagel (St. Louis: Concordia Pub-lishing House, ), especially – and –.

. Walther, Kirche und Amt, .. Kinder presents a very lucid discussion of the hiddenness of the

church. He points out that one can speak of the “invisibility” of thechurch in two ways: in an ontic and in a noetic sense. He rejects the onticconcept of invisibility—“that the true church is fundamentally only aspiritual or transcendent phenomenon, which stands opposite to theempirical church, to which it is fundamentally strange and inwardlyunrelated; the ontic invisibility is therefore exclusive. Second, there is anoetic sense, in which the empirical appearance fundamentally belongsto the church, and that the true church is therefore also ‘visible,’ whilenevertheless its innermost character is not ‘visible,’ i.e., is not directed tothe methods of empirical epistemology, but can only be known throughfaith. The noetically understood ‘invisibility’ therefore does not excludethat which is visible in the church but rather includes it. That which ischaracteristic of the church is not therefore, as in the ontic approach,something which is opposite or behind its outward appearance, but itlies within it, in such a way, however, that it is hidden to natural abilitiesof comprehension and is revealed only to faith.” Kinder, Der evangelischeGlaube, . The dualistic concept of Reformed theologians is an onticview that downplays the visible word-and-sacrament character of thechurch. Only in a noetic sense can we use the paradigm of an invisibleand visible church. I should like to add that in Lutheran thinking thisparadigm must usually be understood as a paradox.

. Marquart, The Church, –, approves the use of the terms visibleand invisible in regard to the church, with the safeguard that there are nottwo churches but only one church. Over against the use of Calvin’s visible-invisible paradigm that has been borrowed in Lutheran dogmatics, it isimportant to heed Elert’s warning: “The church, which, as he [Luther]demands again and again, should be believed, is ‘invisible’ in exactly thesame sense as all the other constituents of faith are invisible. It must bebelieved contrary to all appearances. Therefore it is not ‘invisible’ in thePlatonic-idealistic sense, but in the evangelical-realistic sense it is ‘hidden’(abscondita).” Werner Elert, The Structure of Lutheranism, vol. , trans.Walter A. Hansen, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, ), ; DieMorphologie des Luthertums, vols. (Munich: Kaiser, ), : . See alsoHerbert Olsson, “The Church’s Visibility and Invisibility according toLuther,” in Nygrén, ed., This is the Church, –.

. Heinrich von Rohr, a pastor in the Buffalo Synod who was criticalof Grabau in but refrained from joining the Missouri Synod, gave thisreport of the Buffalo Debate of : “Zugleich wurde erklärt, daß manzwar zwischen sichtbarer und unsichtbarer Kirche unterscheide, sie abernicht von einander scheide, sondern aus Gottes Wort überzeugt sei, daßdie sichtbare Kirche keine andere, als die unsichtbare sei, nur daß, wenndie Kirche entweder sichtbar oder unsichtbar genannt wird, ein unddieselbe in verschiedener Rücksicht betrachtet werde.” Das Buffaloer Col-loquium, abgehalten vom . November bis . December , das ist, die

English translation, The Structure of Lutheranism (St. Louis: ConcordiaPublishing House, ), ff. Nevertheless, in his dogmatics, which firstappeared in , he related the keys to the ministry when he wrote: “Theadministration of the Keys has been conferred on the same office as theadministration of the sacraments and the preaching of the Word.” Elert,Der christliche Glaube, d ed. (Hamburg: Furche Verlag, ).

. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics : –; –; –.. House Postil, , WA : , –.. The original text: “Da habt jhr das rechte geystliche Regiment,

welches man ja so weyt vom weltlichen Regiment soll sondern, alß weythymel und erden von einander sind. Die nun in solchem geystlichen Regi-ment sind, die sind rechte Koenig, rechte Fuersten, rechte Herrn unndhaben zu regiern.” WA : , –; cf. WA : , –.

. WA : , –; , –. WA : , –.. WA : , –.

wir getauffet werden/ all drey person getauffet han,/ damit bey vns aufferden/ zu wonen sich ergeben.” In English the words read literally as fol-lows: “That we should never shelter doubt/ When we receive baptism/That all three persons have baptized,/ So that they, with us on earth/ Todwell, themselves have given.” Here there is no passivity on the part ofGod, no “divine absence” at baptism, nor is the sacrament imagined to bea possession of the local congregation who transfer or confer their Eigen-tum upon their pastor.

. Exposition of Psalm (), WA : . “Es ist war, alle Christensind priester, aber nicht alle Pfarrer.”

. Walther, Kirche und Amt, .. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, : –.. In his relatively early masterpiece, Morphologie des Luthertums

(Munich: C. H. Beck, ; reprint ), : ff., Werner Elert empha-sized the keys as belonging to the congregation. The same is true in the

tions, changes were made that reflected a better balance betweenthe authority of the congregation and the larger church.

Regarding the ministry, the issue was how the ordainedministry was related to the priesthood of all believers. This issuegenerated intense conversations. Some, especially on the ALCside, thought the ordained ministry derived its authority fromthe priesthood of all believers, a functional view of the ministry.Others, primarily from the LCA, argued that the ordained min-istry’s authority is derived from its divine institution. Anotherquestion, the status of parochial school teachers who wereengaged in a teaching ministry in the AELC, added more confu-sion to the mix. The question of the ministry was never resolved;the CNLC recommended that a commission be formed thatwould study the matter for six years and then make recommen-dations to the ELCA.

One of the unique features that emerged from the CNLCwas the adoption of a quota system for selecting voting dele-gates to assemblies and membership on committees and com-missions. Fixed percentages of different groups (women,blacks, and so on) were to be represented on all the variouschurch advisory and governing bodies. The goal was a churchthat was inclusive. The ELCA planned to extend itself beyondits traditional northern European base and reach out to variousminority groups. Inclusiveness became the defining mark ofthe church and affected almost every decision that was made.People were given authority to make decisions, not because oftheir expertise but on the basis of the group to which theybelonged. The quota system received wide opposition, but itbecame a fixture in the ELCA.

Early on, there was much uneasiness about the proposalsthat were coming out of the CNLC. Perhaps the most significantdocument written during that period was the “One and NineQuestions,” an editorial statement published by the LutheranForum in the April , , issue of the Forum Letter. Inresponse to the CNLC proposals, the editors asked theologicalquestions such as, Will this proposal enhance the preaching ofthe gospel, enhance the practice and understanding of Baptismand Eucharist, help deepen the devotion and discipleship ofbelievers, contribute to vitalizing church leadership, strengthenthe theological integrity of our community, help animate thefullness of the ministries of the church, help advance the evan-gelization of all people, make more credible and effective thewitness and work of Christians in society, and strengthenLutheranism’s gift to the whole body of Christ? The questionsasked went to the heart of the meaning of the church and itsmission. Subsequent issues of Forum Letter carried lengthy

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O J , , E Lutheran Churchin America (ELCA), the unification of the LutheranChurch in America (LCA), the American Lutheran

Church (ALC), and the Association of Evangelical LutheranChurches (AELC) brought together approximately . millionmembers in about , congregations, served by some ,

pastors. It became the largest Lutheran body in America.Unlike previous mergers, the process that led to the forma-

tion of the ELCA was well documented. No negotiations wereconducted in smoke-filled rooms behind locked doors. Theprocess was open. Edgar Trexler, in his book Anatomy of a Merger:People, Dynamics, and Decisions that Shaped the ELCA (Min-neapolis: Augsburg Fortress, ), describes the process as “agrand experiment.” This process was characterized by opennessand representativeness. The Commission for a New LutheranChurch (CNLC) consisted of seventy members, selected by gen-der and race and apportioned between clergy and laity. Thisgroup would attend to the details of putting together the struc-tures of the new church body. Their meetings were open; sugges-tions were invited from the constituencies of the bodies involved;decisions were made in a democratic fashion.

Problems were evident from the very beginning, however.There were major disagreements between the LCA and ALC. Ithad been assumed that, based on a common confessional com-mitment, these two bodies would have few differences; such wasnot the case. The areas of greatest tension were ecclesiology andthe ministry.

With regard to ecclesiology, the question to be answered waswhere authority should reside. The ALC representatives arguedthat it resided in the congregation, while the LCA representativessaid this view was not consistent with the Confessions andpushed to view the church in a larger context, contending thatauthority lies in several expressions of the church — includingthe congregation, the synod, and the national church body. In arelated matter, the LCA representatives, especially Bishop JamesCrumley, thought that theological considerations should takeprecedence in the making of decisions regarding the organiza-tion of the church; ALC representatives, such as Bishop DavidPreus, wanted the wishes of the people to take a more prominentrole. Many of the initial constitutional provisions reflected sucha congregationalist view that the LCA bishops intervened,threatening to withdraw from the merger. Because of their objec-

The ELCA: Its Past, Present, and Future

D A. G

D A. G is pastor of Peace Lutheran Church, Poplar, Wis-consin, and is a contributing editor for L.

O

Redeemer, and Sanctifier” as the baptismal formula became suchan object of concern that the Conference of Bishops released astatement upholding the traditional formula of “Father, Son,and Holy Spirit.” Another more recent controversy developedover the first draft of the “Statement on Human Sexuality,”which advocated recognition of committed homosexual rela-tionships and allowing homosexual unions. These examplesillustrate the theological confusion that is present in the ELCA.Gerhard Forde, professor at Luther Seminary and a member ofthe CNLC, sounded the alarm during the course of the CNLC’sdeliberations. At one point he observed, “Nowhere in the docu-ments do we hear the word ‘catholicity’ to describe ourselves,only ‘inclusiveness’.” Forde proved to be right; inclusivenessreplaced catholicity as the defining mark of the church — theresult being that, in the instances cited above, fidelity to theScriptures and the tradition of the church (creeds, confessions,liturgy) has been threatened or simply ignored.

The decision mechanisms that were put in place by theCNLC, and which became reality in the ELCA, have been nohelp in solving its theological dilemmas. The quotas call forevery assembly to be made up of percent clergy and per-cent laity, with percent of the laity being women. In addition,provisions were made to include minority representation. Whilethis is in some respects laudable, it carries with it some great lia-bilities. The clergy, who should possess theological knowledge,have been reduced to a minority role. Many have pointed out,not without foundation, that the ELCA merger processexpressed a pervasive anti-clerical mood. Other evidences of thisare the fact that only active parish clergy can vote at assemblies; aproposal for an assembly of theologians who would deliberatethe theological issues confronting the church was defeated; andfinally, the Conference of Bishops was given no authority, onlyan advisory role. Decisions at assemblies, which affect the entirechurch, are made by people who, because of their lack of theo-logical sophistication, can easily be influenced by presentersfrom the national church office. In the interim between assem-blies, the church’s policies are determined by a bureaucracy thatis, in the opinion of many, accountable only to themselves.

The power and influence of “Higgins Road” has been andcontinues to be a bone of contention within the ELCA. This ismore than a mistrust of bureaucratic structures. There exists thesuspicion that the church is being unduly influenced by interestgroups such as radical feminists, gay and lesbian groups, andadvocates of various social causes. Some have contended that“Higgins Road” resembles the left wing of the Democratic Partyand that sociology and politics have replaced theology as thestandard for what the church says and does. This, in turn, has ledto a widespread fear that the church will become nothing morethan a reflection of American society and culture. There has alsobeen evident a spirit of expediency. For example, the nationalchurch has supported the Church Growth Movement, probablyin an attempt to stop declining membership and reduced benev-olence giving.

Concerns for the ELCA’s future have been expressed in manyquarters; however, the most pointed expression of those concernswas presented in a document issued on the Feast of the Annunci-ation of Our Lord, March , . It was entitled . Theses Con-

commentaries on each of the questions. As one reads thosequestions and commentaries today, the issues they raised andquestions they posed are still valid.

Is this to be an institutional merger or a renewed church?That question was raised regularly during the deliberations ofthe CNLC, and it is still being raised today. One of the weak-nesses of the whole process that brought about the establishmentof the ELCA was the fact that theological issues were seldom dis-cussed, and when theological questions did arise there was greatreluctance to discuss them in detail or to come to any definiteconclusions.

Three questions that were never resolved concerned semi-naries, theological deliberation, and confessional subscription.Regarding the seminaries, the issue was their very purpose andaim. Do they exist to train theologically the future pastors of thechurch, or are they professional schools that are minimallyaccountable to the church? Will theological deliberation play akey role in decision-making? Will the theological faculties pro-vide theological leadership for the church, or will importantdecisions be left to national assemblies, where theological exper-tise is evident in only a few delegates? Will confessional subscrip-tion be taken seriously, the Confessions binding with regard towhat is preached and taught in the church, or will they beregarded as historical documents of a bygone era, which onlyinform us? The CNLC opted to distance themselves from theseessential questions, resulting in theological confusion in theELCA that exists to the present moment.

In its zeal to create a new church, the CNLC indeed createdsomething new, but was it the body of Christ, subject to thegospel, which is at the very heart of the church? Ideas such asinclusiveness and policies such as the quota system left the ELCAopen to the influence of various interest groups, each trying tomake its agenda the church’s agenda. This is reflected in thechurch’s structures. For example, the ELCA now has specialcommissions that were unknown to all the predecessor bodies —the Commission for Women and the Commission for Multicul-tural Ministries. In addition, the Commission for Church andSociety has grown to the point where, by best estimates, it con-stitutes – percent of the national church staff.

Various occurrences have unsettled the short life of theELCA. Very early the “Guidelines for Inclusive Language” wasdeveloped. This document, produced mainly by the Commis-sion for Women, advocated eliminating the masculine nounsand pronouns for God and Christ. This document claimed toexpress the position of the ELCA, yet it had no official standingor approval. Questions regarding the use of inclusive languagecaused controversy. For example, the use by some of “Creator,

Inclusiveness became the defining markof the church and affected almost every decision that was made.

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Another sign of hope is the emergence of the Conference ofBishops in giving some direction to the ELCA. Bishops have tra-ditionally been pastors and teachers in the church, but inLutheranism in America (especially when they were called presi-dents) they more resembled corporate executives. With thechange in title, there has been a shift toward the traditional roleof bishop. As pointed out earlier, the ELCA constitution assignedthe Conference of Bishops only an advisory role. Nonetheless,the bishops are beginning to assume authority, speaking out onvarious issues and providing some theological direction to theELCA. Their statement on the use of the traditional Trinitarianformula in baptism signaled their willingness to assume greaterteaching responsibilities. Every indication is that this will con-tinue, and newly-elected Presiding Bishop Anderson has indi-cated that he favors their involvement.

There are, however, issues of concern — many of which arescheduled to be acted on at the Assembly. No less than threeecumenical proposals are up for consideration, as a package.Nothing has been previously said about ecumenism in this essay,but the ELCA’s ecumenical situation is an indication of its lack oftheological stability. The proposal to enter into full communionwith the Presbyterian Church USA, the Reformed Church inAmerica, and the United Church of Christ is fraught with diffi-culties. It is admitted that there is no agreement as to the RealPresence, the very heart of the meaning of the Eucharist; in addi-tion, there are questions regarding the authority of confessionalstatements. The proposed Concordat with the Episcopal Churchneeds more discussion, especially on issues regarding the min-istry. The ELCA is still unclear on this matter. The six-year studyon the ministry, which was mandated in the merger, was carriedout but achieved no more clarity on the subject than was presentbefore. Of all the proposals, the mutual dropping of the six-teenth-century condemnations between Lutherans and RomanCatholics appears to have the least difficulty.

The responses to the study on sacramental practices haverevealed widespread confusion regarding the sacraments —which are of the essence of the church. The report has somegood points (discouraging indiscriminate baptisms and encour-aging weekly Eucharist), but other proposals such as allowing alayperson to celebrate the Eucharist under certain circumstances,not consecrating new elements when one runs short, and the useof grape juice for alcoholics are causes for concern. It is to behoped that these issues will be addressed in a way that is consis-tent with Lutheran confessional and liturgical traditions.

The purpose of seminaries has still not been adequatelydealt with. This is evident in the report of the Task Force on The-ological Education. The report is mainly concerned with effi-

: , ,

cerning the Confession of the Faith in the Evangelical LutheranChurch in America and was initially signed by eight pastors fromNew Jersey. Its message was straightforward and to the point:“The ELCA is in a crisis — a crisis of faith. The critical question iswhether this church will prove faithful to the prophetic and apos-tolic Scriptures and the catholic creeds and evangelical confes-sions, or fall into apostasy — a fall which could go either to theright or to the left.”

Enthusiasm, fundamentalism, nationalism, and pietismwere listed as ideologies to the right; ideologies to the leftincluded activism, feminism, and advocacy. The struggle appearsto be conservative versus liberal, but the real struggle is for faith-ful adherence to the Scriptures, creeds, and confessions. The .

Theses were intended as a tithe on Luther’s Ninety-five Theses. Ineach case, orthodox truths were affirmed and false teachingswere rejected. The overall contention was that “the Word of Godis silenced among us and driven out of the Church” when thechurch fails to confess and live those orthodox truths. The .

Theses have been disseminated and have appeared in manyLutheran journals (see L, Eastertide/April ). Most of theAdvent/November issue of the Lutheran Forum was devotedto the . Theses and contained commentaries on each of the the-ses, written by their authors. The commentaries, written byparish pastors, show great depth and are, in my opinion, themost substantial contribution to date to the theological issuesfacing the ELCA. They reveal that there is a strong confessionalpresence in the ELCA and that those who are committed to con-fessional integrity will be heard and are willing to wage battle forthe church and the truth of the gospel.

What lies in the future for the ELCA? Many of the problemsfacing the ELCA can be traced back to the way in which thechurch was organized. The ELCA is also, of course, experiencingthe same struggles and conflicts as other religious groups in theUnited States. The issue of how the church relates to the culture(not a new one) still causes lively debate and controversy. But themain task facing the ELCA is that of recovering a sense of confes-sional consciousness — a commitment to its identity as a con-fessing movement within the church catholic. If it can achievethat recovery, it will be unified under the gospel and carry out itsmission; if such a recovery is not achieved, then only division canresult.

It is always dangerous to attempt to predict the future, butsome hopeful signs have appeared. At its Assembly, H.George Anderson was elected as Presiding Bishop of the ELCA,succeeding Herbert Chilstrom. Chilstrom’s leadership has beencriticized on several points. Many have felt that he was too toler-ant of the special interests that tried to influence the ELCA. Oth-ers wondered if some of those interests reflected his ownviews — for example, Chilstrom strongly advocated adoption ofthe first draft of the “Statement on Human Sexuality.” There wasa strong feeling that Chilstrom did not have the theological back-ground to deal with the problems facing the ELCA. Anderson,on the other hand, is a church historian who knows the traditionand has stated that he is committed to teaching and passing onthat tradition. Anderson’s election was greeted with enthusiasmand the hope that under his leadership the ELCA would be puton the right theological track.

The issue of how the church relates tothe culture (not a new one) still causeslively debate and controversy.

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becomes a social center that only entertains. I believe that thismay be the single greatest threat to the church, and that threatmust be met with an intense commitment to orthodox teachingand practice — vigorously to uphold the integrity of the catholictradition, of which we Lutherans are a part.

As Lutherans, we believe in the indefectibility of thechurch — that God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, willpreserve the church in some form to the end. The ELCA, how-ever, deserves to survive only insofar as it is faithful to theLutheran confessional heritage. Many of the problems it hasfaced in its short history are due to the fact that, in its attempt tobe inclusive, it has tried to be all things to all people. Butcatholicity, the true mark of the church, implies a wholeness inthe church’s faith and life, its doctrine and worship. Catholicitycalls the church to a particular confession and a particular mis-sion — proclaiming Christ as the Redeemer of the world andbeing an instrument in the redemption of sinful people. If theELCA is faithful in these matters, it will endure; if not, then itsfuture is uncertain. The next few years will tell us a great deal.We who care about the ELCA’s future must pray that the Spiritwill work to enable the ELCA to be faithful to its calling and tocarry out that calling with zeal. LOGIA

ciency, economy, clustering of seminaries, and improved meansof communication; but the report does not deal at all with semi-nary curricula. Over the years, requirements in the core disci-plines of Bible, church history, and theology were reduced associological and psychological courses were added, either in theform of requirements or as electives. This can only result in sem-inary graduates having less knowledge of the Scriptures and thetradition and a diminished (or confused) consciousness of whatit means to be a pastor. If the church does not deal with this mat-ter, Lutheran identity will be threatened, and the ELCA willexperience the theological erosion that is so characteristic ofAmerican Protestantism.

A word needs to be said on another subject, the ChurchGrowth Movement. The ELCA is not alone in being confrontedby this phenomenon; its influence has also crept into the otherLutheran church bodies in America. This movement is seductivebecause it offers a vision of success in terms of numbers and dol-lars. But, in order to achieve this success, the church needs toplay down its own distinctiveness and cater to people’s perceivedneeds. Distinctive doctrines are played down; the traditionalliturgy is discarded; the sacraments are diminished. In short, thechurch ceases to be the church that offers salvation and instead

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was the same man I knew when he was . (He always said that aperson’s personality changes when he becomes an official; withJack that didn’t happen). When I interviewed him for theLutheran Archives project in the mid-0s it was as though hewere still the young college student I had known in .

Almost always jovial, always quick to form judgments, infatu-ated with watching people and sizing them up, impetuous, andgiven to generalizations expressed in sometimes wild hyperbole,he was restless, and, for someone so amazingly bright, too muchon the move to become, as his younger brother did, a theologianin depth. And, as is well known, he hated face-to-face confronta-tion. It was a flaw in his character that (as is also reported of Pres-ident Clinton) he tended to improvise and imply pacificationwhen issues at hand should have been openly addressed andthrashed out. For that he sometimes was accused of being dou-ble-tongued. (I don’t want to put too fine a point on that, since Iwonder who could have done better at the tasks that confrontedPreus when he came to leadership in the terribly divided Missouriof .) Neither can I imagine Jack Preus plugging along yearafter year in a pastorate where nothing exciting was apt to hap-pen, as, for instance, the Faith-Life editor did for forty years in anon-growing country parish. Not that Jack sought or receivedmuch glory, but he was once lightheartedly described as a manwho ate Mexican jumping beans for breakfast.

Despite my frequent disappointment with Preus’s improvisa-tions and special disappointment during the crisis years of hispresidency, when he sometimes used exactly the wrong people todo the demanding jobs of sorting out issues of doctrinal faithful-ness, I summed up his life to a mutual friend as Paul Hensel in had summed up his sometime-adversary, Norman Madson,long-time chief leader of the ELS and Hensel’s acquaintance ofmany years: “A serious theologian who loved his Savior.” Aboveall, Preus saw no way to preserve the faith without the traditionaldoctrine of Scripture.

The obituary accounts of Jack Preus were numerous and mostlynot surprising. Following the lead of the New York Times, the secu-lar papers portrayed him as a fire-breathing, hard-nosed, heresy-hunting fundamentalist who produced a major schism. Surpris-ingly, the Christian Century was less harsh. Despite Preus’s morethan a decade of energetic and unglamorous service to the ELS, itsLutheran Sentinel carried an only slightly-veiled portrayal of him asa man of compromising character. The Lutheran Witness put out amemorial issue with Preus’s picture on the cover. The write-up wasexactly what we might expect as a public relations production. Aclose friend reports that the funeral itself was an exercise in unper-ceptive hagiography with nary a trace of real gospel proclamation.

j

T J A O P (“Jack” toeveryone who knew him — he didn’t like formality andwore his earned and honorary doctor titles lightly) took

from this life an extraordinarily controversial church leader. Iknew him already when I was a grade-schooler in Decorah, Iowa.Later our acquaintance became intimate and continued so untilthe time of his death. He spent a lot of time with his grandfather,aunt, and uncle, who lived in the old Haugen house directly acrossthe street from my paternal grandparents’ retirement house inDecorah. The senior Mrs. Preus had been a Haugen and was soadmired by my maternal grandparents that they named mymother Idella after Idella Haugen. By the time Jack came to LutherCollege in , my grandfather was becoming senile. Grandmahid the car keys from him. She was not generous in lending the carout even to her own grandchildren. Yet she found Jack so likablethat she happily gave the keys to him to let him transport his auntand her numerous brood of children around town. The Haugens,once a leading merchant family, had been hard hit by the GreatDepression and only barely kept themselves above water. So, inany event, Jack became their chauffeur via Grandpa’s car, and wasa jolly entertainer of the neighborhood children.

My mother, not much of a churchgoer after my father aban-doned her and she was treated as though the guilty party by theclerical Jordahls, joined no church. Earlier in Mason City she hadattended the Wisconsin Synod church. Nevertheless, she sent usto Sunday school and confirmation class at the historic FirstLutheran Church in Decorah, long associated with the Preusfamily. There I got to know Jack, as he often substituted as teacherof our confirmation class. For all of us (I think there were thirty-three of us in the class) his sessions were a treat. Always casual, hesat on the desk with his legs crossed underneath himself andmade learning fun. He teased us when we didn’t know ourlessons, and the teasing was effective. Significantly, he neverteased the backward, slow learners, not even the poor boy whonever could get right even the “What does this mean?” of the FirstCommandment. Most significantly, despite the digressions andrelaxed, jolly style, he taught us more in his half-dozen sessionsthan we learned in all the rest of the one-year course. Best of allfor the class, we were never bored and didn’t watch the big clockon the wall behind our teacher. Later I got to know Jack even bet-ter when his younger brother, Robert, became my best friend atcollege. So, all in all, I knew Jack for over half a century; at he

J. A.O. Preus

B L J

L J is retired, and formerly served as professor and librarianat Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. This article first appeared in the Janu-ary/February edition of Faith-Life.

T

The Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly article was a blandchronicle. Most interesting was an obituary in the Lutheran Forum,written by its editor, who had himself left Missouri to join up withthe ill-fated dissident group. Leonard Klein disagreed with Preuson particulars but gave him the credit he deserved for insisting ongospel integrity. I wished that James Adams, the Roman Catholicauthor of the hastily-put-together Preus of Missouri (), hadwritten something; Adams was a journalist rather than a theolo-gian, didn’t really understand Lutheran theology, but did amaz-ingly well in getting at the paradoxical personality that made J. A.O. Preus a unique church leader.

As I read the varied articles I thought to myself of J. P. Koehler.Koehler was, to use the biological term, a genuine “sport.” Thatmeans to exhibit a sudden and unexpected deviation from typebeyond the normal limits of variation, or put another way, a sur-prise on the scene — in that sense not unlike Luther. In his His-tory of the Wisconsin Synod Koehler managed in few lines tosketch vignettes of such varied actors as John Muelhaeuser, C. F.W. Walther, Adolph Hoenecke, and August Ernst, and to sum upas a master artist the tragic impasse represented by the ElectionControversy. Setting things in their time and place and in light ofthe forces that created them, Koehler, with clarity and charity butno sentimentality, painted, as a good artist must, pictures thatallowed the reader to “see” rather than just compile information,and furthermore, to see in such a way as to learn for our own edi-fication. In no event did Preus have any artist to portray him witheven half-justice.

Scion of a distinguished Norwegian gentry family, Preus’s great-grandfather (“orthodox to his fingertips” and nothing of a pop-ulist) was one of several gentry pastors who settled in the UpperMidwest in the mid-nineteenth century. Unlike the Saxons whosettled in Missouri, the Norwegian immigrants came not for reli-gious reasons, but to experience economic upward mobility. Nei-ther did their pastors come as protesters against the state church ofNorway. Their names are well known in American Norwegianchurch history: Koren, Ottesen, Hjort, Brandt, Muus, Larsen, and,though not from a gentry background, Ylvisaker. Educated in theUniversity of Christiania (now Oslo), and mostly married to well-educated gentry-class women, they had been strongly influencedby the nineteenth-century confessional revival. Many of their laymembers had been influenced by the Haugean pietistic movement.Important to realize, they were not “Old Lutherans” in the sensethat the founders of the Missouri or Buffalo synods were. In nosense were they schismatic, and their ties with the somewhat latitu-dinarian Norwegian state church were cordial though increasinglyremote. Missouri lived in the world of the Formula of Concord andcultivated the polemical thesis-antithesis style. The Norwegian

Synod leaders admired the Formula too, but officially subscribedonly to the Augsburg Confession and the Small Catechism. Giventheir background, the Norwegians developed what has been calleda combination of “orthodoxy-pietism.” Their favorite hymnodywas not so much the sixteenth-century chorale as it was the moresubjective Norwegian hymns.

Adolph Hoenecke once said of the Missourians, “There issomething sectarian about them.” As interpreted by his vicar, J. P.Koehler, he didn’t mean to criticize their doctrine so much as “apeculiarity of demeanor . . . that inclines one to give others thecold shoulder and never rises above one’s parochial view, speechand manners” (History of the Wisconsin Synod, ). He meant, Ithink, what I have referred to as “triumphalism” even when itmoves in the direction of liberalism. Put into pastoral practice, itthrived on such things as points of unionism so fine as to take on,unintentionally, to be sure, the character of pagan taboos.

The Norwegian leaders, orthodox to the core but less aggressive,quickly developed an affection for the St. Louis-based Missouri-ans. For years they trained their ministerial candidates at Concor-dia Seminary. Yet Norwegian orthodoxy, certainly on the level ofparish practice, never really worked successfully. Attempts toestablish parish schools were a failure. On the subject of slavery,Norwegians found Missouri’s position offensive. The numerousacademies founded by the Norwegians were coeducational generalschools and employed teachers of both sexes. They died a naturaldeath as the public schools developed high schools. Even the pre-mier Luther College was never strictly a worker-training school aswere the Missourian Concordias. Ladies’ aids flourished and inge-niously developed schemes to raise money. Many a congregationwould have been in serious trouble were it not for the proceedsfrom ladies’ aid groups. Even in the orthodox Little Synod(formed in to protest the Norwegian merger) its premierMinneapolis church continued for years to run a food stand at theMinnesota State Fair. As Norwegian middle-class congregationsdeveloped in the cities, few were those where it wasn’t known thatthe pastor disliked the Masonic organization; few were the cityparishes that were free of Masonic members. So also even themore conservative pastors allowed a fraternization, say, at wed-dings and funerals, that would have been branded unionism byMissouri standards. Briefly put, the Norwegians adjusted relativelyeasily to the American democratic ethos. I expect the congrega-tions that achieved anything like the tight ship sponsored by Mis-souri were almost nonexistent. Orthodoxy it was, but coupledwith a streak of pietism and pastoral pragmatism: “When indoubt, err on the side of generosity.” On the other hand, pietisticstrictures about card playing, dancing, and alcoholic consumptionwere deeply rooted and in such contrast to Missouri that Norwe-gians felt little at home with Missouri.

Jack Preus came from a highly prestigious family that admiredMissourian doctrine, but, given the crisis of the merger, hadreluctantly gone along with it. He bore a name that implied lead-ership of meritocracy, and there was, in fact, a kind of mystiqueabout both the Preus and Ylvisaker names. Jack’s father, contraryto family tradition, went into law and politics, became two-termgovernor of Minnesota, a founder of Lutheran BrotherhoodInsurance, and along the way prospered financially. Somewhataloof and dignified in manner (his son was just the opposite —

In no event did Preus have any artistto portray him with even half-justice.

nb

Jack was enormously popular even though somewhat uncom-fortable. Had he been scolded, I suspect he might have lifted St.Paul up as an example of “being all things to all men.” Later, andwith some irony, his more orthodox brother also vicared success-fully in the same parish.

Soon after, as a pastor in a genuine blue-collar church in SouthSt. Paul, Preus was as popular as he had been at Luther College.That is not surprising since, like an old fashioned populist, Jackalways felt at home with common people, and even as a churchpresident he would as soon stay at a farm house as at a fancymotel. He had an unstudied knack for adjusting to any host’s styleof life. I once went to hear Jack at his first parish. The sermon wasartlessly folksy, down-to-earth, but enthusiastically evangelical. Ididn’t think he had spent much time on it. Liturgically, thingswere on the casual side, with hymns sung of the decently “old-favorite” variety (the only one I remember is “Beautiful Savior”).Meanwhile, Jack watched a block down the street where WinfredSchaller, newly called from Saginaw, determinedly and with speedand dispatch “cleaned house” at Wisconsin’s previously lax GraceChurch. Jack was intrigued by something he had never encoun-tered before, and watched with half-admiration and half-shock.Years later he reacted similarly when he watched Gervasius Fis-cher even more energetically tear to pieces the large ImmanuelChurch in Mankato in the interest of a unionism-pure pastoralorthodoxy.

I mention those things because even at his most conservative,Preus was no purist but something of a pragmatist. Furthermore,and to his weakness, he was, as it were, restless, easily bored, notmuch given to slow, painstaking study (though his magnificentwork in translating the difficult Martin Chemnitz is an excep-tion). Neither did he plow any new ground. For years I tried toget him to read J. P. Koehler, whose intention was never to find amiddle way but rather a “new” way that would transcend thedeadlock of liberal versus conservative. As far as I know, he neverread more than Koehler’s “Gesetzlich Wesen unter uns.” He likedthat and thought he fit Koehler’s model pretty well!

By the late s, both the Preus brothers gave up on the ELC.Their father admired some of his college friends who had paid thehard price for their conscience scruples in and formed the“Little Norwegian Synod,” now the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.He especially admired the cultured, scholarly, and very dignified S.C. Ylvisaker, who gave up a good professorship to join up with thetiny, despised protesting group centered at Bethany College inMankato. Their congregations were mostly small remnant groups,and their junior college-academy just barely, thanks to the sacrifi-cial leadership of Ylvisaker, managed to recruit enough students tokeep going. Missourians constituted about half its student body.

something of a combination of William Jennings Bryan’s pop-ulism and Ronald Reagan’s “cozy” affability), Preus senior had lit-tle patience with organized synods and betrayed a strain of anti-clericalism. Yet he never doubted the straightforward Lutheranorthodoxy on which he had been reared. Neither was there anytrace of pietism in his makeup. However orthodox he was, he wasnot much of a churchman. He attended church where he felt com-fortable, whether ELC, Missouri, or ELS. When in Chicago, he fre-quented the ELS St. Mark’s, of which his cousin was pastor, and inthe s I saw him quite regularly at the Hiawatha Church of theELS in Minneapolis, where he regularly communed. His orthodoxsympathies were demonstrated when he sent both his sons to theMissourian Redeemer Church in Chicago for confirmation. Afreewheeling, old-fashioned Lutheran was what he was, whodidn’t much trust any organized synod.

As might have been predicted, given the Preus loyalty to LutherCollege, Jack entered as a freshman in . Having gone to theelite Lake Forest Academy, Jack found Luther College not verydemanding. With a small faculty, it tried to offer a full range ofmajors. The faculty had its share of mediocre teachers, but threeor four stars. Its top star was O. W. Qualley, for more than half acentury its aggressively demanding and enthusiastic professor ofLatin and Greek. Jack, building on a good background in Latin,chose to major in the classics (as did also his very serious class-mate and future wife). Jack breezed through college with honorgrades and a minimum of hard work. Years later, Qualley remem-bered Jack as one of his three truly exceptional students. “Bright,quick, relaxed,” he said. Also, he added that it was sometimes irri-tating that Jack sight-read what other students had to spendhours preparing. With an amused smile, since Qualley liked hisbright student, he also termed him “something of a rascal.” ByJack’s own admission he never felt at home Saturday nights witheither the small prayer-meeting groups or the numerous drinkinggroups. Yet he had friends in both groups.

In any event, Jack had lots of fun at college, and there was noteven a trace of “Preusian elitism” about him. Jack became a com-bination of sharp student and fun-loving “regular guy.” A femaleclassmate recently recalled that already after the first week ofclasses, everyone on campus knew Jack and everyone liked him.President of his senior class, his fellow students expected him todo well. They also knew his special gift was as a people charmer,but, it is important to realize, not as one who worked at his gift.His brother, Robert, on the other hand, was very different andalready in college demonstrated gifts in a more scholarly direc-tion and already then was articulately orthodox.

The ELC’s Luther Seminary in St. Paul served Jack Preuspoorly. Its professor of dogmatics neither appreciated nor knewclassical Lutheran theology. In reaction to a teacher for whom hehad no respect, Jack took up the old Lutheran dogmaticians witha vengeance and became bitterly critical of the theological leader-ship of his adopted denomination. As the leader of a small reformmovement at Luther Seminary, he hoped to reverse trends in achurch he believed had a lot of spirituality but no sound theologi-cal footings. From a pastoral point of view, Jack was far less doc-trinaire. As a vicar in a busy, go-getting, middle class parishwhose pastor ran a loose ship in matters of church discipline andwas blithely unaware of what Missourians meant by “unionism,”

Jack had lots of fun at college, and therewas not even a trace of “Preusian elitism” about him.

nb

. . .

a complete outsider to the ELS by then, and in company with mywife’s Gullerud family, we kept off theological issues), both Preusbrothers led the push to suspend fellowship with Missouri. Yet Jackwas never infatuated with Wisconsin “canon-law” orthodoxy. Hefound it contradictory that Wisconsin Synod pastors listened toreadings of Koehler’s “Gesetzlich Wesen,” but didn’t catch its cri-tique of just their tendencies. I can only explain the Preus push forsuspension as the zeal of a not-yet-disillusioned new convert, influ-enced also by his admiration for Norman Madson, himself animpressive but impulsive man who had come to loathe Missouri“double-talk.”

By the Preus love affair with the synod was over; the lead-ers they had admired were no longer at the helm. A vacancyoccurred in the faculty of the Bethany Seminary. Robert was theobvious and only real candidate. He was passed over, and Robert,never personally ambitious, knew exactly that the turn-downcouldn’t be explained in terms other than repudiation. SoonConcordia Seminary, on a crusade to add doctorates to its faculty,offered a call to St. Louis. Looking back at his experiences in the“Little Synod,” he wrote, “Gossip and envy are the bane at a smallsynod.” Meanwhile, Jack was back at Bethany as fund raiser andstudent recruiter. Bethany needed Missouri students, yet its prac-tices made it impossible to recruit such students with a good con-science. Jack knew as well that within the “old-boy network” hewas as much persona non grata as Robert had become.

Only once in my life did I see Jack really depressed. Knowingthe handwriting on the wall, he came to visit me at St. Olaf Col-lege. After briefly apologizing that he had not spoken up morestrongly in my defense when I had had my own troubles with thesynod, he poured out his heart about his own problems. He knewMissouri would use him, given his doctorate and prestigiousname (even old Missouri had been infatuated with degrees). Hewasn’t sure his conscience would allow that. He knew he wouldn’tfit into what he termed “the unimaginative, inbred WisconsinSynod.” The University of Minnesota classics department hadrecommended him for a couple of good secular colleges. He wasin obvious anguish and, he said, his wife was as well. My guesswas that he would leave the ministry and become, like his father, afaithful Lutheran bound to no organized synod.

The rest of the story as to outward details is well known. JackPreus went to Concordia Seminary in Springfield and soonbecame its president. By , with a presidential election comingup, Missouri was in such trouble that some sort of show-downwas inevitable. The St. Louis faculty, all protests to the contrarynotwithstanding, was clearly tolerating the much-feared higherbiblical criticism, which inevitably, as the entire history of con-temporary biblical scholarship demonstrates, destroys the olddoctrine (inherited from the Jews and simply assumed by all par-ties to the sixteenth-century controversies) of verbal inspiration.For mainstream Missouri this compromised the Sola Scriptura.All attempts by the so-called liberal party to insist that its theol-ogy had not really changed rang hollow. As it turned out, twocrucial elections took place in . John Tietjen, like Jack Preuspretty much a Missouri outsider, became president of ConcordiaSeminary in St. Louis. In a surprise election, Preus became syn-odical president. I have no reason to believe that either electionwas free of political maneuvering. Nor do I believe that “bad

Jack Preus severed ties with the ELC, joined the ELS, and immedi-ately was called in to assume a professorship of Latin, Greek,and, as needed, other subjects. The teaching load was heavy, hisfamily was growing at the rate of almost a baby a year (he was anew-style husband who pitched into the work at home), and hewas in demand as a preacher. As one would have expected, he wasinstantly popular with the students. Almost but not quitechummy, Jack’s classes were informal, sometimes randomly orga-nized, and he was ubiquitously visible. He greeted everyone with a“Hi, how are you?” Yet a former student, now a professor of Latinat a state university, remembers him, as Preus remembered Qual-ley, as the best teacher he ever had.

With all the zeal of a new convert, Jack took to the synod withenthusiasm, but related best to the older pastors who had person-ally paid the price for their convictions. He was less impressedwith the second generation Missouri-trained pastors: some ofthem struck him as “organization types,” and others, notably thelocal pastor to whose church the faculty went, appeared to havetaken on the complete baggage of old-Missouri. The latter grouphe respected but knew he would not pattern himself accordingly;the former group he regarded as eager to run things. At Bethany,Jack felt closest to Ylvisaker and Norman Madson, the fiery butpassionate gospel preacher. While he never openly criticized hispastor, C. M. Gullerud, or Gullerud’s buddy Egbert Schaller, hedid say privately that both were something like canon lawyerswho interpreted rules as sharply as possible —“When in doubt,come down hard.” Some years later, after the ELS fellowshipbreak with Missouri, it was Gullerud, supported by Bethany’svery able choir director, Alfred Fremder, who, interpreting union-ism in its most rigoristic manner, maintained that Missouri stu-dents at Bethany should not sing in the choir. Neither could theycommune at the local church. Jack, knowing that in the longcatholic tradition both “rigorism” and “laxism” were heresies,regarded that position as shockingly sectarian (aside from beingforeign to Jack’s natural instincts).

In a schism occurred in the ELC church at Luverne. Agroup wanted to form an ELS parish, and Jack, encouraged by syn-odical advisers, accepted the call. The situation was touchy. For fiveyears he labored with remarkable success and built a strong congre-gation. In parish practice, he was middle-of-the-road if contrastedwith ELC laxism and the Wisconsin rigorism he had observed inMankato. He won the lasting affection and deep respect of hisLuverne lay people. During those same years, the battle was heatingup with Missouri. For reasons I have never fully understood (I was

In parish practice, he was middle-of-the-road if contrasted with ELC laxismand the Wisconsin rigorism he hadobserved in Mankato.

nb

the evangelical catholics are at least serious. To that extent theyintrigued Jack Preus during my last long visit with him (which isnot to suggest for a moment that he might have joined theircrowd). But the point here is not to discuss the possible futures. Itis rather to say my last word about a baffling Jack Preus.

My wife died in spring . When I called Jack, he said hewould be at the funeral if Delpha was up to the trip. At the lastmoment she wasn’t, so Jack was an absent pallbearer (some thirtyyears earlier I had been a pallbearer at his father’s funeral). I sentthe funeral bulletin to him and he almost immediately called backto say that the readings and hymns were “just wonderful.” As heput it, he had never before realized what a magnificent hymn Mar-tin Schalling’s “Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart” was. Maybe,he said, he should list that for his own and Delpha’s funerals inaddition to their already chosen, more subjective favorite, “Beholda Host Arrayed in White.” I don’t know if the hymn was used, butwhat Jack said he loved in the Schalling hymn were the lines “LordJesus Christ, my God and Lord, / Forsake me not! I trust thyword,” and “I will praise thee without end.”

Schalling himself in the sixteenth century found himselfcaught between two irreconcilable parties: the Flacian-led Gne-sio-Lutherans and the “compromising” Melanchthonians. Hepaid his price and ended up as a hero to neither side. Refusing tocompromise with the government-led Reformed-Lutheranliturgy, he lost his parish. Refusing to accept what he regarded asthe excessive condemnations of Melanchthon set forth by thewriters of the Formula of Concord, he also lost a ministry. Yet hisgreat hymn is a witness to his deep faith. About Jack Preus it canalso be said, when everything else has been said, that it was theLord Jesus he meant to extol, and it is for that he would want tobe remembered.

Preus was not the theologian or church leader who was neededto forge a new way to overcome the delinquencies already appar-ent in the Lutheran controversies of the nineteenth century. Stillless could he rescue Lutheranism from the twentieth-century cri-sis that was only a logical consequence of earlier wrong turns.Only a miracle, on which one never dare count, can lead to areawakened Lutheran vitality and integrity. What can be said isthat Preus loved his Savior, and did his best, given his personalmake-up and theological tools, to be a faithful steward. I think ofthe last line of John Bunyan’s once-popular hymn:

He who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster,Let him in constancy follow the Master. There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent, His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim” (SBH, : ). LOGIA

faith” was more characteristic of one side than the other. I doknow that the differences were irreconcilable.

Sometime in late or (I don’t recall the date) I metC. S. Meyer at the Chicago air terminal. Both of us had time onour hands and sat down to visit. My wife had once been a baby-sitter for the Meyers in Mankato, so we visited about the Gullerudfamily and old days at Bethany. At my initiation, the conversationmoved over to the intra-Missouri issues. Of Preus and Tietjen,Meyer said, “They live in two such different worlds that there isno way they can even communicate. Besides that, they don’t likeeach other.” I thought of Winston Churchill’s famous comment,“Identify the enemy and exaggerate the danger.”

The story that followed unfolded like a Greek tragedy. Jack,supported from the sidelines by the ultra-conservative ChristianNews crowd, became for a time their hero. Tietjen, supported by aloyal faculty, didn’t compromise and neither did his faculty when,for instance, confronted by a “fact-finding” committee. Tietjenbecame the star figure of a faculty exodus. To the overwhelminglyliberal press, Preus became the scoundrel; Tietjen and coteriewere hailed as martyrs (did any martyrs ever receive the publicglory and fame that they did?). In time the exodus group becamethe AELC, influenced the formation of the ELCA, and seemedhappy to have freed themselves of every remnant of their Mis-sourian past. The ELCA itself became a mainline liberal Protes-tant denomination.

Jack Preus, on the other hand, failed to live up to the rigoristicstandards his erstwhile supporters had laid on him. Viewed in ret-rospect, it appears that Preus himself was more the genuine mod-erate than were those who styled themselves by that name. In noevent did Preus succeed in rebuilding “old Missouri.” Neither,however, did he manage, as J. P. Koehler had so valiantlyattempted, to discover a “new way” to reorient theology. The timefor that had passed, and even the “evangelical catholicism” now soeloquently being promoted by a small wing of disillusioned ELCALutherans is almost surely not going to succeed. For all that, andover against a characterless ELCA, a Missouri flirting around withsuch novelties as Church Growth, or a Wisconsin happily unawareof its once-pioneering “historical-exegetical” evangelical witness,

To the overwhelmingly liberal press,Preus became the scoundrel.

nb

. . .

Conversation between Two Lutherans Concerning Church Organization

H F

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in our new homeland came by God’s grace to know the churchand true religious freedom? Every day we read God’s Wordtogether and in it we found clear witness to a fellowship moregenuine, more brotherly and free than anything we had everimagined and for which we had only longed in the depths ofour hearts. How happy we were then! No matter what our pre-sent home lacked at first in learning and art and all the nicetiesof life, it now seemed rich to us. We saw its mountains andforests and prairies shining in the light of freedom, and ourbreasts were filled with a holy eagerness to build the freechurch of the Lord. Filled with joy then, you sang about howmuch free brotherly fellowship meant:

Here are not priests or laymen,Here are no clerics grand. No! Brothers here and freemen, A dear and lovely band. etc.

And now — I have to be frank with you, no matter how ithurts me — you are getting yourself right back into the hands ofthe clergy.

S: Well, I thank God in heaven that he brought me here to youso that we can really talk out this matter of forming a churchorganization. I only ask you to keep an open mind and to expressyour reservations freely, and I have no doubt that we will under-stand one another and come to agreement. Just as before, I wantto continue to fight for the freedom of the church, and, if neces-sary, even die for it, God helping me.

You called our synod a German consistory?E: That’s why I hate them both, because they are tyrants.

German consistories take away from the congregations theright to choose and call their own pastors and to govern them-selves. Instead, they often bring outright unbelievers, rational-ists, and other false teachers to be their preachers, and, armedwith temporal authority, they even forbid them to dismiss suchgodless pastors.

German consistories have robbed our people of the beautifulold Lutheran hymns by watering them down with rationalisticnonsense, and they have introduced catechisms, doctrinal books,and agendas with false beliefs.

And how shabbily they have generally treated the preachersand congregations who believe correctly! I even know of a consis-tory that had a policy that whenever a congregation requestedsomeone as its preacher, the request would be rejected as a matterof course so that no one would get the idea that the congregationitself had the right to call its pastor. The consistory permitted ene-

I of May this year. The woods andprairies were already clad in their finest delicate greens, andthe sky displayed a dark blue as a steamship made its way

down one of those beautiful rivers that grace America’s west. Alongwith other travelers it also carried a delegate who had attended thefirst convention of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Mis-souri, Ohio, and other States in Chicago. He was now on his wayhome, but first he wanted to visit his friend Erich.

Not long after there appeared on the left bank a friendly settle-ment that had been established within a short time by Germanindustriousness. The helmsman sounded his bell, the wheels fellsilent, and the boat came slowly to shore. Gangplanks were laidand several people came ashore, among them our delegate. Hemade his way to a house that stood at the top of a hill.

His friend welcomed him: “Greetings, Siegfried!” And both ofthem celebrated this moment of reunion, one of the most beauti-ful moments in this life.

“Where have you been, old friend?” asked Erich afterward asboth of them made themselves comfortable on the summerporch of the little farmhouse.

Siegfried: At our synod, which held its first meeting inChicago.

Erich: (Surprised) At a synod?S: Yes. Why not?E: I would never have expected that from you.S: Why? What’s wrong with a synod?E: Is it any different from what they call a consistory in Ger-

many?S: Well, no, not really.E: Good grief! That I have to see a friend of mine help rob our

Lutheran congregations of their precious rights and freedoms.S: Erich!E: What fun the enemies of Christ and the anti-clerics are

going to have with that when they find it out. Now already theyare making fun of this bag called a “synod” into which congrega-tions would be stuck and which pastors would open up onlywhen they want to let them see something. I would never haveexpected that from you!

S: Let me . . .E: My dear brother, don’t you remember anymore that lovely

time when we got free from the pressures in Germany and here

T in Der Lutheraner, volume , under thetitle “Gespraech zweier Lutheraner ueber kirchliche Verfassung.” It wasin four installments: June , –; July , –; July , –;August , –.

I

mies of Christ and people who ridiculed his holy gospel to be itsofficials. And when these were finally denounced because of theirinfamous actions, it said they had the right to do such things.

In short, the only rights our Lutheran congregations in Ger-many have are the right to pay and the right to obey. And as aLutheran am I not supposed to hate such an abomination tothe death?

S: It is true that many of the consistories in Germany today arelike that, but they were not always that way, nor are all of themlike that now.

E: Did God get us free from the pope’s tyranny by Luther’slabors only to sell us into slavery to a worldly consistory? Christhas called us to freedom.

S: As much as I recognize with you the abuses of our church inGermany and feel the pain of that, still, it seems to me an outrageif so many German people, as soon as they land on American soil,shower our old fatherland with poisonous ridicule and can findnothing good about it at all.

E: That is indeed a shame, because whatever good we have herehas come to us from God and from Germany.

S: You know how faithfully and wonderfully our brothers inthe faith in Germany are concerned about forsaken Lutherans inAmerica.

E: God bless them for it!S: So when we disclose the defects of the church in Germany,

let us do it with a kind of love that feels the pain of our brotherswho suffer under it as if it were our own pain. The Lutheranchurch in America and in Germany is all one church, becausethere is only one body of the Lord in the whole world, and if onemember suffers the others suffer along with him.

E: May God set things right for them! No matter how ferventlywe decry the slavery of the congregations in Germany, we still arenot the only ones who do so. There are many devout Christiansover there who continually beseech God to redeem his captivepeople. And God listens to prayer.

Tell me, how was it possible for consistories to get started? S: You know how clearly and strongly our confessions and

Luther himself proclaimed the freedom of the church on the basisof God’s Word. For example, in the writing titled “That a Christ-ian Gathering or Congregation Has the Right and Authority toJudge All Doctrine, to Call, Install and Depose Teachers” or in a“Circular Letter Concerning How Church Servants Should BeChosen and Installed, to the Council and Congregation of theCity of Prague.”

E: And yet that freedom was lost.S: Congregations at the time of the Reformation lacked too

much in the Christian knowledge that is necessary to be able togovern themselves everywhere and in every way.

E: That, undoubtedly, is what the papist priests brought about. S: Since there were God-fearing princes and devout rulers at

that time who lovingly guided the affairs of the congregation, thecongregations trustingly handed over their rights to the consisto-ries, especially since these consisted of laymen as well as clergy,and they shared the church’s faith and genuinely tried to do whatwas best for it.

E: So the consistorial type of organization was well suited forthe needs of that time?

S: Certainly. In the Lord’s hand it has been a tool by which hehas blessed his people. But the congregations did not keepwatch, and so in time power in the church came to be increas-ingly in the hands of secular rulers, even though several Luther-ans protested as earnestly as they could that Christ had not res-cued his people from papal slavery only to make them servantsof political lords.

E: Ah, that sounds grand! If only all of them had borne witnesslike that.

S: Then the church would have remained free. But since theydidn’t do it, the church regulations finally even proposed theawful teaching that civil rulers were the “highest bishops” of thechurch.

E: No, that’s impossible. The same justification is used by thepope and bishops to call themselves the bridegroom of the church.

S: So now the “royal, archducal, and ducal consistories” rulethe Lutheran church of Germany in the name of the princes.

E: So that’s how the rulers took the control and honor fromChrist and assumed it for themselves.

S: You have surely heard of his highness, the king of Bavaria.

His life is well known. He is a papist, and, as such, the highestbishop of the Lutheran church in his country. His Lutheran pas-tors also are actually called “royal pastors”!

E: You’re kidding!S: Unfortunately that is the bitter truth. In fact, that is not the

only example. It is even worse in Prussia. There the last king

ruled the church himself, dictating his own articles of faith andeven establishing his own church, the Evangelical Church, whenhe as the supreme bishop united the Lutheran and ReformedChurches.

E: Oh, yes, isn’t that the same church that here is called“United” or Reformed-Lutheran” or “Lutheran-Reformed”?

S: It is the same conglomeration, and it arose out of the mis-taken idea that it makes no difference what we receive in theLord’s Supper. This indifference is the chief article of faith uponwhich the union rests, its real foundation.

E: But it doesn’t seem to me that that would last too long. Didthe Prussian Lutherans understand this profound doctrine oftheir king?

S: He tried to explain it through both his spiritual and his tem-poral soldiers, but all for nothing.

E: What do you mean?S: Well, first of all his underlings in the church, that is, his high

royal consistorial councils, professors, and pastors, sought toprove the union’s articles of faith to the Lutherans; and when theLutherans refused to be convinced, he sent his royal soldiers.

E: And did they preach more convincingly about the union?S: Yes, with bayonets. The king’s spiritual soldiers had main-

tained that brotherly love was really the inner basis of the union,and the military soldiers now had to give outward evidence ofthis by using force to introduce the king’s agenda and by provingit to those who resisted by imprisoning and fining them andputting them under house arrest.

E: That sounds like the way the Roman pope formerly usedto prove to our fathers the articles of faith that he himself hadmade up.

S: This too is obviously caesaropapism, that is, worldly papism.

. The name Herman Fick followed the final installment. Carl JohannHermann Fick (February , –April , ) was born in Doenhausen,Hanover, Germany, the son of an army lieutenant and grandson of aLutheran pastor. He studied theology at the University of Goettingen. In he read F. C. D. Wyneken’s tract “Die Noth der deutschen Lutheranerin Nord-Amerika” and decided to go to America. He prepared briefly atNeuendettelsau and sailed for America in September of . After a stayin Fort Wayne he arrived in St. Louis in January . An article by himappeared in the February , , issue of Der Lutheraner, the first of many.He applied for the position of pastor in the Lutheran congregation of NewMelle, Missouri, and was called to that position. He asked, however, thathis installation be delayed until after the organization of a new synod. Hewas present in Chicago at the organizational meeting of the EvangelicalLutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States and was colloquizedthere the evening of Monday, April . He served in New Melle, Missouri(–), Bremen, Missouri (–), Detroit, Michigan (–),Collinsville, Illinois (–), and Boston, Massachussetts (–).He served on the first Mission Board of the synod and later gave service as

while many are deceived and long for its wanton beauty. TheGreek Catholic emperor-pope of Russia persecutes the churchwith slavish, despotic severity. German pope-kings have boundthem with bonds of worldly power. False teaching, unbelief, andempty philosophy take over in the world. Indeed, Gog andMagog are already surrounding the beloved city. Oh, I see noth-ing but night!

S: And I see only sunshine. Did not Christ have to enter hisglory through suffering?

E: That is true. And so also the church had to win its victorythrough martyrdom. And so now also it must fight through mar-tyrdom for its freedom and its rights.

S: That’s the way it has to be. We must through much tribula-tion enter the kingdom of God. There must be suffering, butthere is also victory, for the victory is our faith which overcomesthe world.

E: That is the ancient rule.S: And, in addition, take the old but always new promise: “The

Lord said to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your ene-mies your footstool.’ The Lord will send the scepter of your king-dom from Zion. Rule among your enemies. The Lord at yourright hand will smash the kings at the time of his wrath.”

E: The Scripture must be fulfilled in our time also.S: In that we want to take comfort, Erich. Let us never forget

the land of our fathers, for God’s grace and its blessing have givenus a true and genuine freedom of religion here. May God also res-cue our brothers from the yoke of tyranny.

E: Yes, let us pray, hope, and wait for that until our final breath.

The sun sank in the clear western sky. The endless prairiesfilled with a white mist, while the stream at the foot of the hillflowed darker in the shadow of the lofty woods that bordered itsbanks. A profound stillness fell over everything, and the twofriends sat quietly with hands folded and watched as the light ofday took its leave from them, its red rays bidding them a lastfriendly greeting.

“Let us go, Siegfried,” said Erich, standing up. “Night hasfallen on our conversation, and soon the dew will fall and thecold wind will blow.” LOGIA

NOTESvisitor, district vice-president of the Northern District, and synodical vice-president for the eastern area. He was a prolific writer, his special interestsbeing church history and poetry. C. F. W. Walther regarded him a closefriend and after Fick’s death wrote a biography of him entitled “Zur Erin-nerung an unseren unvergesslichen Fick,” which appeared in Der Luther-aner (July , ): –; (August , ): –; (August , ):–; (September , ): –; (September , ): –. See alsoWalter D. Uhlig, “Our Unforgettable Fick,” Concordia Historical InstituteQuarterly [Hereafter, CHIQ] (January ): –; and Carl S. Meyer,“Walther’s Biographies of Buenger and Fick,” CHIQ, (August, ):–. A translation of Der Lutheraner’s report on Fick’s ordination onMay , , is found in Carl S. Meyer, ed., Moving Frontiers (St. Louis:Concordia Publishing House, ), –.

. This meeting in Chicago was held from Monday, April , toThursday, May , , at the church served by the Reverend C. AugustSelle. [W. F. Hufmann], “Erster Synodalbericht der deutschen Evange-lisch-Lutherischen Synode von Missouri, Ohio und anderen Staaten vomJahre ,” Der Lutheraner (July , ): –.

E: What did our brothers in Prussia do about it?S: Many suffered as martyrs and made their protests like men.E: And what reply did the Prussian pope-king give to that?S: As “supreme bishop” he allowed the Lutherans to have their

church taken away. His whole papal-royal church yelled bloodymurder over those bad Lutherans because they didn’t want toburn incense to his image and enjoy his Lord’s Supper. Unspeak-able misery, trouble, and suffering for conscience’ sake overtookthem, and they left the country by the thousands to look in NorthAmerica and South Australia for the freedom to follow con-science which their homeland had denied them.

E: Is it any better over there now?S: The present Prussian king has designated the Lutheran

church a sect; they have as much freedom as the Jews.E: Is that what it has come to for the church of the Lord that in

the course of the centuries has had the name “Lutheran,” whichaccording to its confession is one with the holy Christian church?Has it now come to this, that the children must flee to the moun-tains? For the abomination stands once again in the holy place.

God drove it out through Luther, but the kings with their servantshave dragged it back in again.

Yes, the end draws near. The last times are here. The last andmost difficult battle is at hand. The kings used to be guardiansand the princes were the nurses of the church, but what are theynow? Robbers and tyrants who have robbed the Lord of hishonor, his church of her royal crown, her privilege, and her free-dom. She, the noble queen, must now serve those who shouldserve her, for the scepter of the godless rules over her. Her jewelsand her joy are left behind. Rejected and banished she cries dayand night in clothes of mourning and there is no one to lead her,and her enemy boasts loudly. Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, our onlyheavenly King, you, the only Overshepherd and Bishop of oursouls, look upon this vineyard! The wild pigs have rooted it upand the wild beasts have destroyed it. Look upon your church inthe east, languishing in her Babylonian captivity.

S: Be comforted, Erich. She is founded upon the holy hill.

E: The Roman papacy is growing, a hellish monster withdeceitful powers; it grows stronger again and comes forth into theopen and stretches out its bloody claws over Europe and America

. Hier gibt’s nicht Pfaff’ noch Laie / Und keinen Priesterstand, /Nein! Brueder nur und Freie, / Und nur der liebe Band uc.

. This was a concern before and during the organizing convention ofthe Missouri Synod. The consistories of Germany and the ministeriums inthe United States at the time put direction of church life into the hands ofthe clergy. Carl S. Mundinger observes, “In the constitution of the Mis-souri Synod, on the other hand, the balance of power between laymen andpastors was the most carefully guarded provision in the entire document.This provision must be credited in large part to the energetic participationin constitution making on the part of the laymen of St. Louis.” Govern-ment in the Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, ),–.

. Martin Luther, “Dass eine christliche Versammlung oderGemeinde Recht und Macht habe, all Lehre zu urteilen und Lehrer zuberufen, ein- und abzusetzen, Grund und Ursach aus der Schrift,” ;WA : –. W : –.

. Luther, “De instutuendis ministris ecclesiae ad senatum PragensemBohemiae,” ; WA, , –. W : –.

. Fick refers here in a footnote to “Guericke, Kirchengeschichte II,.” This is certainly a reference to Heinrich Ernst Ferdinand Guericke,Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, th expanded and revised ed. (Halle:Gebaursche Buchhandlung, ). A copy of volume of this edition in thelibrary of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, is inscribed with Pastor Fick’sname. On the page cited, a footnote explains that after the Reformationauthority gradually went over to civil rather than ecclesiastical authorities,and they exercised this through the already established consistories withonly occasional protests.

. Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia appealed to this in . KennethScott Latourette, History of Christianity, rev. ed., vols. (New York: Harperand Row, ), : .

. King Ludwig I, who ruled Bavaria from until his abdication in.

. Friedrich Wilhelm III reigned from until . In he used

his authority as civil bishop to appoint commissions to study liturgicalconditions. In he placed ecclesiastical affairs under the minister of theinterior and in he declared the union of the Lutheran and ReformedChurches in his realm. In he restored the consistory and created bish-ops in and . In he made one of them archbishop and createdgeneral superintendents, each of whom was placed over several provinces.Latourette, : –.

. Latourette notes that while Friedrich Wilhelm III hoped at first forvoluntary conformity with his decrees, his government did use force tomake so-called Old Lutherans conform, imprisoning and removing pas-tors, and even putting one congregation out of its church building.Latourette, : –. Karl Heussi, Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte (Tue-bingen, ), ; James Hastings Nichols, History of Christianity– (New York, ), .

. Friedrich Wilhelm IV reigned from till . He was more tol-erant than his father, releasing pastors from prison and in recognizingthe General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia, whichhad been formed by Old Lutherans in . Latourette, : ; Heussi,–.

. Matthew :–.. Psalm :. The phrase was used by Pope Leo X in in Exsurge

Domine.. A picture taken from Luther’s writing of , The Babylonian Cap-

tivity of the Church.. Perhaps from Isaiah :.. The pontificate of Pope Pius IX (–) had just begun, but the

influence of the papacy was on the rise during the first part of the nine-teenth century and would continue to grow. Latourette, : – passim.

. Revelation .. Revelation :..Acts :.. John :.. Psalm :, , .

W L who occupy aposition more in direct opposition to AmericanLutheranism, namely, the Brethren belonging respec-

tively to the Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States, and thatcomposed of Rev. Grabau and his associates, and often called, butnot properly, the Synod of Buffalo.

It is well known that the Lutheran Church in Germany has, fromthe middle of the last century, till lately, suffered greatly from ratio-nalistic tendencies, which had crept into her theology. A reactionagainst these encroachments of an infidel philosophy upon thesanctuary of the Church, which it is true, had still retained a holdon some of her members, commenced soon after the conclusion ofthat terrible war, that had, at the beginning of the present century,shaken both Church and State to their very foundations. . . .

In some of the other German States too, as in Bavaria, Saxony,Hanover, Mecklenburg, love for the Lutheran Confession is fastreturning, and this orthodox tendency is defended by the mostdistinguished theologians, such as Rudelbach, Harless, Sartorius,Thomasius, Delitzsch, Hoffmann, Kliefoth, Kanis, and otherswith the most decided success.

Those Lutherans, driven out of Prussia by persecution, foundin the United States, where many of them had emigrated, otherstrict Old Lutherans, who, in , misled by the fanaticism of theSaxon preacher Stephan, had seceded from the Lutheran Churchin Saxony and emigrated to America. But becoming convinced ofStephan’s perverseness, they expelled him from their communionand returned again to sounder Church views.

In addition to these Prussians and Saxons, others have sincearrived, partly sent out by that well-known Bavarian ministerand Christian writer, W. Loehe, and partly by the MissionarySociety of Saxony. Some came in consequence of the oppressedcondition of things at home, whilst, in , others fromBavaria, Saxony, and Hanover, came from free choice, and forthe express purpose of breaking the bread of life to theirbrethren in a distant land. . . .

It might have been expected and desired, that these Brethrenwould at once unite with the Lutheran Church in this country, orwith existing Synods, or with the General Synod, and in connec-tion with it organize new Synods. That they, however, did not dothis, seems very natural. The cause of their standing aloof from theGeneral Synod is not so much to be sought for in the difference oflanguages, as in other circumstances. Most of them settled in the

T from W J. Mann’s “Lutheranism inAmerica,” an essay on the condition of Lutheranism in America pub-lished in .

far West [Ohio and Missouri]. They had left Germany because theEvangelical Union Church was not enough for them.

And when they arrived here, what did they find? A GeneralSynod, the most important representative of the LutheranChurch in this country which did not stand on the basis of theLutheran Church, nay, which did not even unequivocallyacknowledge the Augsburg Confession as the principal confes-sional document of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and whoseopposition were, in their theological views, decidedly Zwinglian,in their practice generally Puritanic, and withal unable to offer avigorous opposition by means of sound religious principles to thedelusions of Methodism.

Thus it happened that these Brethren felt the necessity offorming themselves into a separate Synod. . . . The acknowledgedorgan of this tendency, “The Lutheraner,” [sic] has been in exis-tence since . It is edited by the Rev. Prof. C. F. W. Walther, aman of a most thorough theological education. He is a decidedLutheran, and there are few in our day more intimatelyacquainted with the Old Lutheran doctrines and divines than he.He has lately rendered very important service to the departmentof science by his work on the Lutheran doctrine concerning thechurch and the ministerial office.

He has also edited, for several years, a religious periodical,under the title of Lehre und Wehre (Doctrine and Defense), whichis designed to meet the wants of the scientific, as the Lutheranerendeavors to meet those of the popular art of that community.

These periodicals afford already in themselves an evidence ofthe energetic spirit of these Lutheran brethren, who have, in ameasure, made a new beginning with the Lutheran Church inAmerica. They were also unwearied in their exertions to organizenew congregations, build new churches, and especially to pro-mote religious instruction, and erect parochial schools. Theyjustly regard these as the most effectual means to ground theyoung in the doctrines of the mother Church, and thus preservethe Church itself from final dissolution. . . .

THEIR DOCTRINAL POSITION

In doctrinal views, these brethren stand on the Confession of thatfaith which is contained in the Symbolical Books of the LutheranChurch, as far as they are comprehended as a whole, the severalparts of which are explanatory and supplementary to each other.They regard the dogmatical system of Christianity, as containedin these books, as being the true interpretation of the Sacred Scrip-tures. They do not esteem these writings because they emanatedfrom Luther or from some of the other Fathers of the LutheranChurch or because they had once obtained authority in the

j

The Strict Lutherans

W. J. M

W

Lutheran Church, or are of importance in connection with itshistory, but because they cherish the conviction that a better andmore correct comprehension of the principal doctrines of thesacred Scriptures has never been produced, nor can be.

They regard a Confession of Faith of absolute necessity to theChurch, for the Bible is equally in the hands of the Catholic, theBaptist, the Unitarian, and the Quaker. But they read it, each onewith his own eyes. Each finds his own peculiar tenets in it. AChurch destitute of a fixed interpretation of the sacred Scriptureswhich she regards as the true one and adopts as her own wouldbe nothing but a confused mass of dogmatical and religious viewsof mere individuals. . . .

It is a well-known fact that during the last century, in Germany,the decline of the authority of the Symbolical Books of theLutheran Church, and the rise of rationalistic tendency were simul-taneous. At present, we find that in the same country, respect forthe Symbolical Books is returning and with it faith and piety.

Symbols are nothing else than what the original meaning ofthis word of Greek derivation signifies, namely, a compilation ofthe principal doctrines of the Creed; they either pronounce thetrue orthodox Faith, like, as for instance, the Apostles’ Creed, orthey give a clear explanation of it, in accordance with the sacredScriptures, refuting and rejecting the views of heretics, wheneverthey teach doctrines at variance with the Word of God. This isdone with peculiar skill especially by the larger among the writ-ings of the Symbolical Books.

It is easy to perceive what an anomaly it would be to call anymodern religious society the Lutheran Church, except it, at thesame time, regards that as the Confession of its Faith, which wasregarded as such by the Lutheran Church from the beginning.The Lutheran Church certainly holds many doctrines in commonwith other denominations. But this by no means constitutes herthe Lutheran Church; just as little as, on the other hand, a Unitar-ian can be called a Lutheran, because his ancestors may at onetime have been Lutherans.

The Lutheran Church is Lutheran by virtue of its peculiarLutheran Creed, and not without it. As soon as it relinquishes thisor any part of it, it forfeits the claim to the name. The members ofthe Lutheran Church possess, at all times, the right to subject thefaith of their Church to the most rigorous examination by theWord of God; and in case they should not find it in perfect agree-ment with it, they have the privilege to leave a Church whoseConfession seems to them at variance with the Word of God. Butto change this ancient Confession, and in this altered conditionpass it off as the Lutheran Confession, is as far from being justand honest as it would be to take one of Raphael’s original paint-ings and after having altered its nose, mouth, and ears, persist incalling Raphael the father of such a mutilated production.

No one has ever contended that the Symbolical books are ofequal importance with the Scriptures, or that they make theScriptures needless. No! They only claim to be a compilation ofthe principal doctrines of salvation, and a plain Scriptural exposi-tion of the points especially in dispute among the different reli-gious parties existing at the time of the Reformation.

It is true that our salvation does not exactly depend equally onall of those points, as, for instance, on that of the Holy Sacra-ments, yet it cannot be denied that not one of them in the entire

doctrinal system was accidentally this or that way determined,but they constitute a whole, in which the several parts are to agreewith, and necessarily affect, each other.

Thus, for instance, the dogma concerning the Holy Sacramentswill not be made a condition of salvation; but my comprehensionof this doctrine stands connected with the meaning which Iattach to the declaration of the sacred Scriptures, and also withmy entire view concerning the relation sustained by Christ to hisredeemed. Therefore, it is possible for me to be in error in regardto one point, without thereby overthrowing the entire foundationof the Creed, i.e., I may remain ignorant of the consequenceswhich may result to the whole Christian system of doctrines frommy error. But the more clearly I understand the intimate connec-tion of all the different parts, the less shall I feel inclined to regardit as a matter of indifference whether I believe so and so in refer-ence to any single doctrinal point.

If therefore, these Lutheran brethren of a stricter symbolicaltendency require the members, and among these especially theministers of the Lutheran Church, to maintain its ancient Creed,they are not only justified by the formal universal custom of theLutheran Church, but they do it to make the Word of God, andnot, as some will have it, the word of man, binding on their con-sciences, the true interpretation of which they confidentlybelieve to be contained in the confessional documents of theLutheran Church. They challenge to a most open examination ofthe sacred Scriptures, and to the severest trial of the SymbolicalBooks by them. Should anyone find that these books teach any-thing contrary to these Scriptures, he should at once give up alldesire of remaining any longer a member or minister of theLutheran Church.

No one should receive the Lutheran Confession on the author-ity of another, but find it again and again, as the result of his owninvestigations in the sacred Scriptures. He will then not be indanger of lifeless orthodoxy, but heartily rejoice at the enlight-ened understanding with which his Church has been favored andgladly proclaim her doctrines. But to make the Symbolical Booksof our Church so closely interwoven as they are with her entirehistory, not even a subject of study, or even condemn and rejectthem, before having carefully compared them with the Word ofGod is unworthy of every honest and noble-minded Christian, tosay nothing of his being Lutheran. These are, in the main, theprinciples hitherto maintained by all the adherents of the OldLutheran faith.

This may suffice to show why the brethren of a stricter symboli-cal tendency maintain the principle that the Lutheran Creed, ascontained in the Symbolical books, must have authority in theLutheran Church. They cannot convince themselves that thesedocuments, as a whole, contain anything contradictory to theScriptures, and therefore retain them, nay, they would lay them-selves open to the charge of acting most unconscionably if, withthese convictions, they would not retain them. To them they mustadhere under all circumstances which everywhere exert their influ-ence on men, even in cases where by a change of the principles ofthe Lutheran Church the greatest external advantages should offer.For truth possesses a value above all prize; this we must hold fast,teach, and believe, order our lives in strict conformity to it, andleave the rest to the all-controlling Providence of God.

As regards the forms employed in the Divine worship of strictLutherans, we have but little to say. They, of course, maintainwith the Symbolical Books, the principle to which repeated refer-ence has already been made, namely, that in regard to this subjectliberty is to be granted, and nothing is to be rejected, except whatis contrary to the Word of God, and does not tend to the edifica-tion of evangelical Christians. But that uniformity in these things,though not absolutely necessary, is nevertheless desirablethroughout the Church in general is a point concerning whichthey are also agreed. They have, however, hitherto been unsuc-cessful in their endeavors to bring about such a uniformity andare far from making any law in reference thereto, lest what wouldbe acceptable to some might prove obnoxious to others.

In the meantime, however, they are endeavoring to preserve inthe main the regulations as they obtained in the Lutheran Churchduring the sixteenth century. They consequently observe in theirpublic worship the same order which we introduced above, asthat followed by Luther himself. They read every Sunday the OldEpistles and Gospels, sing antiphonies and chorals, and celebratethe Lord’s Supper, if not every week, yet much more frequentlythan other Lutheran Churches in this country are accustomed tocelebrate it.

They published, about fifteen years ago, a Hymn-book for theuse of their congregations. In this are contained the old church-hymns; we say the old, because what the German LutheranChurch has since the middle of the last century added to herhymnological treasury is of no account, not even the productionsof such men as Hiller, Bengel, Spitta, Knapp, &c. In an appendixto the Hymn-book are found prayers for private use, formulas forprivate baptisms (Nothtaufen), a collection of Antiphonies (Into-nations and Responses), the prefations on Sundays and festivals,Luther’s Smaller Catechism, the Ecumenical Symbols, the Augs-burg Confession, the Epistles and Gospels of the ecclesiasticalyear, and the history of Christ’s sufferings, according to the fourevangelists. This Hymn-book has accordingly been prepared witha view to liturgical worship and may in many respects beregarded similar to the Book of Common Prayer of the EpiscopalChurch.

Preaching is always joined with extemporaneous prayer. Theirchoral singing is quicker and livelier than in most places in Ger-many and this country. A common Church prayer book has notyet been published by these brethren. We have, however, beeninformed that they are about having reprinted for their use, withprobably a few unavoidable alterations, the order of services for-merly in use in Wittenberg, Saxony.

The liturgy, published about two years since by the Synod ofPennsylvania and adjacent States, they do not deem satisfactory.They also adhere very strictly to the Old Lutheran custom of cate-chizing the children on every Sunday. As regards external forms ofworship, no fixed rules have been established. The sign of the Crossas far as we know by many a general custom whether the ministermakes it with his hand or whether a crucifix stands on the altar, [ismade] in commemoration of the sacrifice rendered by Christ onGolgotha. Of any superstitions being connected therewith, thereare no traces whatsoever. In some congregations, lights are also onspecial occasions kept burning upon the altar. Of the existence ofany other strange or unusual customs among them we have no

knowledge. Moreover, neither of these things is looked upon asbeing essential. They are merely regarded as ancient customs,retained out of consideration for many of their members whohave emigrated from the northern part of Germany where theyare in use throughout the entire Lutheran Church.

We refer the reader, in regard to this subject to the Minutes ofthe Eastern District of the Synod of Missouri, &c., of , p. .The Minutes of the Western District Synod of , p. ff. areequally explicit. They urge the doctrine of Christian liberty in theintroduction or exclusion of ceremonies, but press at the sametime the view that ceremonies which have once become identifiedwith a Confession such as the breaking of bread in the Lord’sSupper, as a confessional mark of the Reformed, are to beregarded in a different light than other general religious cere-monies. This they regard as manifestly unsuitable to be intro-duced into the Lutheran Church, because this has always been adistinguishing feature of the Reformed Church. As to using breador wafers, it is immaterial, only caution in all such matters shouldbe observed. As an appropriate ceremony was named the use ofthe Old Testament blessing as most proper for dismissal, &c. Thesign of the Cross used in Baptism, in the Lord’s Supper, confirma-tion, absolution, and blessing, is called “the most lovely Christianceremony” because it “continually reminds us of Him who, forour redemption, died upon the Cross, and through whom allheavenly blessings are received.”

But what is the character of religious life of these Lutheranbrethren of a stricter tendency? If active zeal in the promotion ofthe kingdom of God, in the spirit of the Lutheran Church may beregarded as an evidence of living piety, they are not surpassed byany part of that Church. They manifest the most lively interest inthe cause of missions, having erected stations even among someof the Indian tribes of the northwestern part of this country. Theyare indefatigable in the building up of colleges, seminaries,churches, parochial schools, and congregations. These congrega-tions are often very small in numbers, but always ready to dotheir utmost in sustaining their churches, schools, and publicworship. Many of our German congregations especially would dowell to imitate these brethren in their voluntary, self-denyinglabors for the kingdom of God.

Most of the ministers, it is true, command the respect and loveof their people, but their outward circumstances are often thoseof poverty and hardship. Many of them are obliged to act duringthe week as teachers of parochial schools. The religious educationof children is another point upon which they earnestly insist. Theprofession of a school-teacher is most justly regarded by them asbeing closely allied to that of the minister, and it is worthy ofnote, that well-tried and pious school-teachers are received asadvisory members at their Synodical meetings.

They also aim especially at having, as far as possible, divine ser-vice in every congregation on every Sunday, so that ministers arenot at liberty to take charge of as many congregations as they maythink proper. New congregations in the West, which are not toodistant from each other, and wish to be associated, often build theirchurches at the most central point where all may easily assembleevery Sunday for worship; but each congregation has neverthelessits own school and teacher. Within congregations themselves a verystrict Church discipline is maintained. These brethren who, in a

measure, commenced the Lutheran Church here anew, have mostwisely profited by the sad experience of many of the older congre-gations of this country, whose constitutions were, in this particular,exceedingly deficient — a circumstance which has, in manyinstances been productive of the most lamentable results. In theirChurch discipline we regard private confession as one of the mainpoints, it being made part of a minister’s official duty to acquainthimself as far as lays in his power, with the spiritual condition ofeach individual member of his flock.

Equally important is the fact that no individual can, as long ashe is a member of any secret society be admitted as a regularmember of the congregation. He may indeed be received for oneyear on probation, but when that has expired, he must come to adecision whether he will dissolve his connection with the secretsociety or the congregation; a measure, it will easily be perceived,eminently calculated to exclude from a congregation all foreignand disorganizing elements. Members are of course required tosubscribe to the doctrines and constitution of the Church andcongregation. [f.n. To those ministers and laymen who have notfully made up their minds about the tendency of secret societiesand who have hitherto not been able to discover any differencebetween the moral standard set up by the Church and that set upby secret societies we would earnestly recommend a highlyinstructive work by the Rev. Jas. T. Cooper, Pastor of the SecondAssoc. Presbyterian Church, Philada., , on Odd-Fellowship.]Members are of course required to subscribe to the doctrines andconstitution of the Church and congregation.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Against these brethren, who have only lately commenced theirlabors in the United States, and who have, consequently, only buta short time been known amongst us, various complaints havebeen urged. Some have even converted the term Old Lutheranisminto an expression of terror. That this has unfortunately beendone under the influence of prejudice and without first institut-ing a minute and dispassionate inquiry, cannot be denied. Manyof us may have become acquainted with the weak side and repul-sive features of Old Lutheranism whilst we have remained almostentirely ignorant of its strong points, as well as of the character,doctrines, forms, and constitution of the primitive LutheranChurch. One party is continually finding fault with the Creed ofthese Old Lutherans, whilst, on the other hand, some of the besttheological talent is employed to defend with all the weapons ofScripture and learning the faith of the fathers as genuine, Christ-ian, and evangelical. Or has belief in the Lutheran doctrines andfidelity to the Confession of the fathers and the Church become afault in a Lutheran? Or is the bare assertion that the peculiar doc-trines of the Lutheran Church are not the doctrines of the Scrip-tures, sufficient proof that they are not?

We are far from approving everything belonging to these OldLutheran brethren. Yet it must be borne in mind that their causemet with persecution in Germany and persecution easily engen-ders bitterness. They have, moreover, experienced some verysevere trials amongst themselves, in consequence of which theyhave become somewhat irritable. Their earnestness, therefore,frequently manifests itself in a somewhat harsh, repulsive, andinclement manner. And who does not know that a persecuted

Church has hardly ever recognized any good in those at whosehand it has suffered oppression?

These facts account for that immoderate, really foolish, hatreddisplayed by some Old Lutherans against the German EvangelicalUnion, and against whatever is even remotely connected with it.This hatred often borders on the ridiculous as if the Union wasresponsible for all the misfortunes that have befallen the GermanChurch. Just as ridiculous is it when some designate the differ-ence between Lutheran and not Lutheran as identical with thedifference between Christian and not Christian, as if only theLutheran Church was entitled to the appellation of Church— aname which they seem to apply in a sense intended to convey theidea that the difference between their own and other ecclesiasticalbodies is not one of different degrees of Christian knowledge andfaith, but a difference of genus.

That among these brethren differences of opinion on minorpoints should exist is easily conceivable and quite natural; butthat both parties should have exhibited in their controversies asfor instance in the discussions above alluded to as having beencarried on between the Synod of Missouri and that of Buffalo, somuch bitterness of feeling is deeply to be regretted. Its effect can-not be other than unfavorable. Surely, no one can be induced tobelieve that all this severity of language was indulged in out ofsincere love to God and man and that no carnal earthly passionsrankled in the hearts of those who used it.

Equally exceptionable is that frigid exclusiveness which theymanifest, especially towards all who on that account often, with-out even first giving them a fair trial and endeavoring to becomebetter acquainted with them, are treated and denounced as ene-mies of the truth. In like manner do we regard it as a mistake thattheir just and commendable attachment to the good old ways andcustoms should incline some of these brethren to deal somewhatunjustly with whatever is new. As an instance of this, we refer tothe Hymn-book above alluded to.

Highly as we value the old and unadulterated treasures of thehymnal of our Lutheran Church, we yet believe that the graciousgifts which the Lord has bestowed upon our Church in our owntime are also deserving of notice. But in this too we only regardthe ultra opinion as a mistake, and an act of injustice against theChurch and her members and a misapprehension of the bless-ings of God.

Wise moderation and the utmost precaution in the applicationof whatever is new is proper, yea, even a duty. That, however, thesebrethren lay too much stress upon the principle of sound doc-trine, on mere orthodoxy, on the letter, does not appear from theactual condition, order, activity, and self-denying labors of theircongregations. Of the fact that they have at times been somewhatunguarded in their expressions, especially when speaking of therelation of the Symbolical Books to the Scriptures, these brethrenhave long since been informed by well-disposed friends fromwithout. It will be to their own interest to avoid misapprehension.And it is after all nothing else but this for the Scriptures, accordingto their own Creed, give importance to the Symbolical Books, andnot the Symbolical Books to the Scriptures.

These brethren do not, on the whole, regard the condition ofthe Lutheran Church during the seventeenth century as theirideal, that time when Symbolical orthodoxy had certainly degen-

erated with thousands into lifeless formality. Some few, indeed,may have fallen into this error, but of the whole it can by nomeans be alleged. They possess far too much spiritual vivacity tobe easily brought into subjection to the mere letter, to fall intoanother sort of legitimacy. It is with them a peculiar feature thattheir Synods and Conferences are not merely engaged with ques-tions to which the constitution, the external relation of Churchand congregation, may give rise; but they discuss questions froma theologico-scientific point of view in discourses, and in theirsubsequent deliberations, which may be of importance either tothe minister or to the congregation, or to schools, or missions,&c. In this way, much spiritual incitement is produced and oneleaves the convention enriched with knowledge.

This Lutheranism of the old unaltered Confession of ancientforms has sprouted like a green bough from the old oak, andhas been thriving during the last few years in our midst. Itstands by itself, but it also grows by itself. It will yet be sub-jected to some severe trials among which the transition of theyounger generation from the German mother Church to theEnglish will not be the least. We hope that these brethren willbe the less disposed to oppose any obstacles to a transition ofthe young, the more these will carry with them the old spiritand faith into the new language. The history of the future alonewill solve the problem of what degree of vitality there is in thisold Lutheran seedling, transplanted into the fertile soil of theNew World. LOGIA

A CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

The editors of L hereby request manuscripts, book reviews, and forum material forthe following issues and themes:

ISSUE THEME DEADLINE

Reformation Theology of the Cross & Justificaiton June ,

Eastertide Marriage and Sexuality August ,

Holy Trinity The Office & Offices November ,

Reformation Melanchthon: Anniversary Issue May ,

Send all submissions to the appropriate editors and addresses as listed on the inside backcover. Please include IBM or Macintosh diskette with manuscript whenever possible.(Specify word processing program and version used.)

The autographs of the New Testament, of course, contained nopunctuation, and so this “new” translation did not involve a tam-pering with the original text. Beginning with the publication ofthe New English Bible, however, this “new” translation rapidlybecame the standard translation and has been so ever since.

NEW AND YET NOT NEW

Omitting the comma was not, in fact, new. Although theLutheran Symbols chose not to follow Martin Luther’s translationof this verse, Luther had not used a comma in his translation of. J. Armitage Robinson had also omitted the comma in hisclassic commentary on Ephesians. But whether new or old, theNew English Bible translation found a very receptive audience atthe seminary in the fall of . I am sure that I was only one ofmany seminarians who could hardly wait to get out into the min-istry to explain — using the New English Bible translation ofEphesians :–— that our role as “pastor-teachers” was not todo the work of service in the world, but to train and equip the laypeople to do it.

I am sure that I was also not the only young pastor to find thatthis interpretation of Ephesians :– was not received with thesame enthusiasm by the lay people. They already knew that allChristians are called to serve in the world in imitation of ourLord Jesus Christ, who had come “not to be served, but to serve”(Mk :). They also knew that pastor-teachers are to feed andequip them with the word and the sacraments for that service inthe world. They didn’t need a “new” interpretation of Ephesians:– to prove this to them. Maybe they feared that we youngpastors would attempt to “train and equip” them for that servicein ways other than primarily through the power of the word andsacraments.

When asked to write this article, I quickly discovered thatthere are also strong exegetical reasons to question the omissionof the comma from Ephesians :. To show why this is so, I havequoted below the translations of the Revised Standard Version of (RSV), the New English Bible (NEB), J. Armitage Robinson(JAR), the Revised Standard Version second edition of (RSV-), the New International Version (NIV), and the New RevisedStandard Version of (NRSV).

RSV: “for the equipment of the saints, for the work of min-istry, for building up the body of Christ”

JAR: “for the perfecting of the saints for the work of min-istry, for the building up of the body of Christ”

NEB: “to equip God’s people for work in his service, to thebuilding up of the body of Christ”

j

P: O after the phrase “to equipthe saints” (pro;" to;n katartismo;n tw'n aJgivwn) inEphesians : has become standard practice ever since

the publication of the New English Bible in . When thecomma is omitted, however, none of the possible translations forthe following phrase, “for the work of diakonia” (eij" e[rgondiakoniva"), make sense in the context. If, on the other hand, acomma is placed after “to equip the saints,” then the phrase “forthe work of diakonia” can be translated as a reference to the ful-filling of the office that Christ has given to apostles, prophets,evangelists, and pastor-teachers.

The practical application of the passage in the post-apostolicchurch, therefore, is not that “everyone is a minister,” or that “everyChristian is a priest,” but that prophets are to prophesy, evangelistsare to evangelize, pastor-teachers are to pastor and teach, and soon, with all the offices given to the church by Christ through theHoly Spirit. When this is done the result will be “the building up ofthe body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and ofthe knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the mea-sure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (:–).

When I returned to Concordia Seminary in Clayton, Missouri,in the fall of for my fourth year, there was a great deal ofexcitement in the exegetical and practical theology departmentsabout the New English Bible, which had been published in .In the practical theology department, much of the excitementwas about the “new” translation of Ephesians :–. The KingJames Version, followed by the Revised Standard Version of ,had placed commas between the prepositional phrases of verse ,translating the passage as follows:

And his gifts were that some should be apostles, someprophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, forthe equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, forbuilding up the body of Christ.

The New English Bible, however, by placing a comma onlybetween the second and third prepositional phrases of verse ,changed the meaning of the passage entirely:

And these were his gifts: some to be apostles, someprophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, toequip God’s people for work in his service, to the buildingup of the body of Christ.

Ephesians :– Reconsidered

P J. S

P J. S is pastor of Hope Lutheran Church and Student Cen-ter in Storrs, Connecticut.

P

RSV- (= NRSV): “to equip the saints for the work of min-istry, for building up the body of Christ”

NIV: “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so thatthe body of Christ may be built up”

In Greek the verse consists of three prepositional phrases. Inthe first phrase, the preposition (pro;") is followed by the definitearticle. In both the second and the third phrases, a differentpreposition (eij") is used, in both cases without a definite articlefollowing. The second and third phrases, therefore, are parallelconstructions in Greek.

DIFFERENT PRONOUNS, ANARTHROUS NOUNS AND COMPACT PHRASES

Robinson gives three arguments for his translation: First, that thephrase for the work of ministry is “most naturally taken as depen-dent” on perfecting. Second, that the change of preposition (frompro;" before perfecting to eij" before both work of ministry andbuilding up the body of Christ) also “points in this direction, but isin itself not conclusive.” Third, that “the absence of the definitearticles” preceding the Greek words for work and for ministry andthe resulting “compactness of the phrase, is strongly confirma-tory” for omitting the comma.

Since even Robinson admits that the change in preposition isnot in itself conclusive, I will address only his first and third argu-ments. Taking the latter first, we note that the two nouns in thesecond phrase are indeed anarthrous, but so is the noun in thethird phrase, making that phrase also characterized by “compact-ness.” Since the second and third phrases are parallel construc-tions in Greek, one would expect Robinson to take both phrasesas dependent on perfecting. His translation leaves that interpreta-tion possible, but his comment on the third phrase does not: Thethird phrase “gives the general result of all that has hitherto beenspoken of.” If the absence of the definite article and the resultingcompactness of phrase were as important as Robinson contends,one would expect that more of the translations would have pre-served the parallelism.

WHY “WORKS OF SERVICE” WON’T WORK

Robinson’s first argument is that the phrase for the work of ministryis “most naturally taken as dependent” on the noun that Robinsontranslates as perfecting. When this translation is followed, nocomma is placed after saints. The alternative is to take the phrase asdependent on gave in verse , and to place a comma after saints.

The first problem with Robinson’s interpretation is that thetranslation perfecting is too strong; a better translation is training orequipping. The second problem with Robinson’s interpretationinvolves his understanding of the Greek word diakoniva. This word,which has come into English in the word deacon, is usually trans-lated as either ministry or service. Like our words ministry and ser-vice, the word diakoniva can refer either to a service that is per-formed, or to the office by which or through which the service isperformed. If the first meaning is applied here, then the referencemust be to service in the general sense of “works of service” (NEB).

But there are three difficulties with this interpretation. The firstis that the word diakoniva is rarely — if ever — used this way inthe New Testament. Second, if general works of service is the

intended meaning, the passage says too little, for its meaningwould be that Christ gave some to be apostles, some to beprophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastor-teachers,to prepare the saints to do practical service. Third, if the phrase istranslated as a reference to practical service, the following phrase,for the building up of the body of Christ, becomes inexplicable. Itcertainly cannot, on the one hand, be taken as parallel to for doingpractical service. On the other hand, if it is taken as dependent ongave, then for doing practical service intrudes on the thought of thepassage. Practical service or works of service, therefore, will sim-ply not do as the meaning of diakoniva in verse regardless ofwhether or not a comma is placed after saints.

WHAT DOES WORK

The other meaning of diakoniva that is possible here is that of office.This meaning will work only if a comma is inserted after saints, forif a comma is not inserted, the passage states that Christ gave officesto the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers, in orderto prepare the saints to fulfill their offices, including, presumably,the ones just mentioned — which does not make sense.

When diakoniva is understood as referring to an office and acomma is inserted after saints, the difficulties enumerated abovedisappear. In addition, the word translated as training or equip-ping can now be understood in a general sense rather than in thelimited sense of training or equipping the saints for practical ser-vice. If equipping is the sense Paul has in mind, it may even bethat Paul is anticipating here what he will say about the wholearmor of God in chapter .

A REMAINING DIFFICULTY

One difficulty that remains is that of translating the secondphrase, “for the work of diakoniva,” into idiomatic English. Thedifficulty is caused by the fact that the Greek word for work(e[rgon) has a much more active sense than the English word.This difference can readily be seen from the different meaningsgiven for the Greek word in a Greek lexicon: “deed,” “action,”“manifestation,” “practical proof,” “accomplishment,” “occupa-tion,” “task,” and “that which is brought into being by work.”

The sense of the full phrase, then, is: for the carrying out or ful-filling of the functions or responsibilities of one’s office. Themeaning of the sentence is that Christ gave some to be apostles,some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,so that they might carry out the offices bestowed upon them.This is how the Lutheran Symbols understand the passage in theonly reference they make to it:

Paul [in Ephesians :–] enumerates pastors and teachersamong the gifts belonging exclusively to the church, and headds that they are given for the work of ministry, for thebuilding up of the body of Christ.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COMMA FOR VERSES 13–16

Finally, it is not only the phrase “building up the body of Christ”that is inexplicable if diakoniva is understood as practical serviceand no comma is inserted after equipping. Verses – alsobecome inexplicable:

:–

until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge ofthe Son of God and become mature, attaining to the wholemeasure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer beinfants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown hereand there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning andcraftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speak-ing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into himwho is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body,joined and held together by every supporting ligament, growsand builds itself up in love, as each part does its work (NIV).

Consequently, although the “new” translation was very appeal-ing in the egalitarian age of Aquarius in the early sixties, it doesnot stand up to careful scrutiny.

APPLICATION TO THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH

In closing, perhaps the best way to compare the two differentinterpretations of Ephesians :– is to compare their practicalapplication to the church.

First, if the comma is omitted from Ephesians :, the applica-tion in the post-apostolic age is that prophets, evangelists, andpastor-teachers are to prepare the saints to do works of practicalservice. If that is one of their primary functions, the prophets,evangelists, and pastor-teachers may appropriately be called“community organizers,” “enablers,” “facilitators,” or Xs and Lsand Cs, or whatever the current rage is. If the phrase “everyonea minister” is used, it should be changed to “everyone a servant.”If the claim is made that “all of the members” of a congregationare the “ministers” of the congregation, the word ministers shouldbe replaced by servants.

If the comma is retained, the application of Ephesians :–

to the modern church is more complex. Paul’s concern in Eph-esians is to say how “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of thesame body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus throughthe gospel” along with Jewish Christians (:). In chapter Paulexhorts his Gentile readers “to lead a life worthy of the calling towhich [they] have been called, with all lowliness and meekness,with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintainthe unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (:). This appeal isfollowed by the classic Pauline statement of the unity of all believ-ers in the church: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as youwere called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord,one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who isabove all and through all and in all” (:–).

This is the unity that we have in Christ. This unity, however,does not mean that we are carbon copies of each other or that weall have similar functions within the body of Christ. Rather,“grace was given to each of us according to the measure ofChrist’s gift” (:). After a quotation from Psalm in support ofthis exalted Christology, :– follows.

The practical implications of verses – for the church arethese: apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers are thegift of the exalted Christ to the church. Christ gave these gifts tothe church not merely to equip the people of God to do practicalservice, but to equip them in every appropriate sense. They are todo this by carrying out the functions appropriate to the officesthat Christ has bestowed upon them. Prophets, for example, are

to prophesy, evangelists are to evangelize, pastor-teachers are topastor and teach. When these offices are carried out, the body ofChrist will be built up “through the due activity of each part”(: NEB).

NOTES. “Und er hat etliche zu Apostel gesetzt / etliche aber zu Propheten /

etliche zu Euangelisten / etliche zu Hirten und Lerer / das die Heiligengeschickt sein zum werck des ampts / da durch der leib Christi erbawetwerde.” The Wittenberg edition is identical except that the first phraseof verse is translated “das die Heiligen zugerichetet werden.” I amindebted to Robert E. Lange for alerting me to Luther’s translation and toKenneth B. Block for the references cited. For the Lutheran Symbols’ useof Ephesians :– see note below.

. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, d ed. (London: James Clarke &Co., n.d.), . After I had done most of the work on this article, Kenneth B.Block sent me a copy of an article by H. P. Hamann that Ronald R. Feuer-hahn had called to his attention. Since my arguments parallel Hamann’s, Ihave incorporated his in the notes rather than in the text. In his article,Hamann cites the NEB translation and Harry Wendt’s exposition of it inDoctrine in Outline (): “In short, Christ did not appoint pastors to dothe work of the church by themselves, but to equip God’s people to be ser-vants, and to do his work for him.” Hamann then states: “I have beendoubtful about this translation and this exposition of the verse of St. Paulfor a long time.” In his article Hamann also quotes Marcus Barth’s state-ment in the latter’s Anchor Bible commentary (note p. ) that the exege-sis popularized by the NEB “has been promoted since about by D. T.Niles and the World Council of Churches.” “Ephesians :–,” LutheranTheological Journal , vol. , , . James W. Voelz, in his recent book,discusses the question of whether or not to place a comma after the firstprepositional phrase of Ephesians :, but does not take a position on thematter. What Does This Mean? Principles of Biblical Interpretation in thePost-Modern World, Concordia Scholarship Today Series (St. Louis: CPH,), –, –.

. “Pastors and teachers” in verse is a hendiadys for a single office.In “Paul, Seminary Professors and the Pastoral Office,” an unpublishedessay sent to me by Ronald Feuerhahn, James W. Voelz has argued againstthis interpretation of Ephesians : as follows:

The standard analysis of this passage interprets the final two cate-gories (poimevna" and didaskavlou") as a unit, noting that no articleis in evidence before the last noun, neither does a me;n or de; sepa-rate it from the poimevna" which precedes. But I have long beenunimpressed by this assertion, from the point of view of stylistics.It is true that in this passage didaskavlou" is anarthrous and theparallelism of the previous structures is broken. But—and here isthe critical point—to change the specific expression relating to thelast item in a chain or series of items is a common stylistic tech-nique in Greek—especially in Paul, as can be seen quite clearly inmany examples.

Voelz then cites: () four second-person singular verbs each preceded by akai; in Romans :, , followed by a second singular verb followed by a tein verse ; () four predicate nouns (oJdhgovn, fw'", paideuthvn,didavskalon) in Romans :, , followed by a participle (e[conta) in verse; () four participles (oJ didavskwn, oJ khruvsswn, oJ levgwn, oJ bdelussov-meno") in Romans :–, followed by a relative pronouns (o{") in verse; and () Galatians :. In a footnote, Voelz adds that in Luke :– “apresent command concludes a section of aorists.”

It appears to me, however, that the last item in each of the series ofitems in the Romans and Luke passages makes a significant progres-sion in thought beyond the preceding items in each series. If that iscorrect, the stylistic changes accompanying those final items may beintended to signal that the last item in each series is not to be taken asstrictly parallel to the preceding items, but as progressing beyondthem. Whether or not progression is present must, of course, bedecided by an examination of the content of the series. But other struc-tural differences between the last items and the preceding ones may be

LOGIA

a clue to the presence of such a progression. Thus in Romans :–,the first item in the series is not simply a verb, but a verb with a depen-dent clause that extends all the way through verse . Similarly, theaccusative participle following the four predicate accusative nouns inRomans :– is followed by a dependent clause that extendsthrough the rest of verse . (The NIV translation of this participle ascausal [“because you have”] expresses the progression here.) Likewise,the last item in the series in Romans :– is more than twice as longas any of the preceding items. The progression in content is perhapsmost clearly visible in that last passage, which culminates in a contrastbetween boasting (in a positive sense; see : and :) in the law, anddishonoring God by breaking the law. Finally in Luke :–, the twoaorists have objects (“do not fear those,” “fear him”), while the presentimperative in the last item in the series has none (“do not fear”), theimplication being that we are no longer to fear anyone or nothing at all,except “him who has power. . . .”

The last example cited by Voelz is Galatians :. Yet even here, is itpossible that Paul intends the oujk . . . kai; to signal a progression from“neither Jew nor Greek”—a racial and religious distinction—to “nei-ther male nor female”— which cuts across all racial, religious, andsocial-economic distinctions? If so, it appears to me that all five ofVoelz’s examples support the standard translation of the Ephesians :phrase as “pastors and teachers.” In What Does This Mean, Voelz trans-lates the Ephesians : phrase with “the pastors, and the teachers,” butdoes not defend his translation ().

. See Hamann’s statement about “teachers of method and bureau-crats” in note below.

. I was originally asked to write this article for a publication whosesponsors are supportive of the meta-church movement. The specificrequest was for “an exegetical treatment of Ephesians and its applicationto leadership training.” Given my comments about the meta-church innotes and , it is not surprising that my article was never published.

. pro;" to;n katartismo;n tw'n aJgivwn eij" e[rgon diakoniva" eij"oijkodomh;n tou' swvmato" tou' Cristou'.

. Robinson, .. Robinson, .. The second edition of the Revised Standard Version and the New

Revised Standard Version have—like Robinson—translated the secondand third phrases in a way that makes it possible to interpret them as par-allel constructions, but the New English Bible and New International Ver-sion translations have left no traces of parallelism. Referring to the threephrases, Hamann asserts: “If there is to be linking of the phrases, the link-ing of the second with the third is the most logical thing to do, for thenyou are linking two phrases which both begin with the preposition eis. Tolink the first two is to link a pros phrase with an eis phrase and leave thethird phrase, an eis phrase, independent” (–).

. The literal translation of verse is “He gave some apostles, someprophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.” It is clear from acomparison with Corinthians :– and Romans :– that the list ofoffice-holders in verse is not intended to be complete.

. In Thessalonians : the verb has the meaning of “to supply.” InHebrews : it is used of the world being “fashioned” (NEB) or “created”(RSV) or “formed” (NIV) or “brought into being” or “brought intoorder” by the Word of God. In Peter : it has the meaning “restore.” In Corinthians : the meaning is “improvement.” See also Mark : (ofputting nets in order), Galatians :, Thessalonians :, Corinthians:, and Corinthians :. Even “equipping” may be putting too fine apoint on the word. Hamann argues that the now-standard interpretationof katartismo;n tw'n aJgivwn “makes the noun carry its meaning throughthe dependent genitive to the following prepositional phrase.” This inter-pretation, he states, “is just possible, but the probabilities are all the other

way, to take the phrase katartismo;n tw'n aJgivwn as complete in itself, the‘training’ or ‘completion’ or ‘discipline of the saints’” ().

. Hamann writes that, with the possible exception of Corinthians: and Hebrews :, diakoniva is never used in the New Testament of ser-vice in the general sense, but “is always restricted to some special kind ofservice, or special ministry.” In Ephesians :, he contends, the widersense is “just possible, no more.” Hamann, therefore, does not understanddiakoniva as “office” but as a specific service, in this case, “the edification ofthe body of Christ” (). See the next note for a more complete statementof his interpretation. Should my suggestion that diakoniva means “office”in verse not hold up, I would have no difficulty accepting Hamann’sinterpretation. Both interpretations require a comma after “saints.”

. Robinson’s assertion that building up the body of Christ “gives thegeneral result of all that has hitherto been spoken of” is simply a lameattempt to get out of the dilemma he has gotten himself into ().

Here and below I am arguing from the context. Hamann’s words inthis connection are worth quoting at length: “Finally, the context itself—and this is always the most important argument—favours the view that v. is the purpose of the gift of the four (five) classes of men (offices) men-tioned. One expects to hear in v. (the purpose of the gifts) what apostles,etc. are to be and what their task is to be, not what they are to lead othersto do or to be: apostles, prophets, etc., are there to perfect the saints and towork in the service, that is, in the edification of the body of Christ. I can’tsee these officers as teachers of method and bureaucrats telling everybodyelse what to do so that the great purpose of God may be attained” ().

. In v. the NEB translates the word with “activity.” The activesense of the Greek word has survived in the English cognate “energy.”

. “Paulus . . . numerat inter dona propria ecclesiae pastores et doc-tores et addit dari tales ad ministerium ad aedificationem corporisChristi.” De potestate et primatur papae tractatus, , BSLK, , lines–. My translation is identical to that of Theodore G. Tappert exceptthat Tappert has added the word “and” between “for the work of min-istry” and “for building up the body of Christ.” For this translation see Tr,, Tappert, .

. For those who have not been initiated into the mysteries of meta-church, which is a transfer to the church of the pyramidal structures ofmilitary organizations and businesses such as Amway, the Roman numer-als X, L, C, and so on are the only titles used in the movement for leadersof , , , etc. We can at least be grateful that the movement has dis-closed its departure from the historic church by using a hyphenated namefor itself and by using titles for its leaders that have no precedent in Scrip-ture or tradition.

. There is, of course, no support at all in Scripture for the claim that“every Christian is a priest,” since the word priest is always used in theplural in the New Testament when it is applied to Christians and is a cor-porate concept that cannot be individualized without destroying it.

The concept of “the priesthood of all believers” must also be usedcautiously because () “bodies of priests” is a more accurate translationof the Peter phrase, () “the priesthood of all believers” declinesmarkedly in importance in Martin Luther’s works after the beginningof the controversy with the “enthusiasts,” and () the phrase appearsonly once in the Lutheran Symbols, and then as part of an incompletesyllogism used to argue that since the church alone possesses thepriesthood, it has “the right of electing and ordaining ministers.” Depotestate et primatur papae tractatus, (BSLK , lines –). Foran English translation see Tr, (Tappert, ). On the translation“bodies of priests,” see John Elliot, “Death of a Slogan: From RoyalPriests to Celebrating Community,” Una Sancta, Michaelmas, ;and Elliot’s review of Oscar Feucht’s Everyone a Minister (ConcordiaPublishing House, ), which appeared in the November issueof Lutheran Forum.

Review EssayDoing Well and Doing Good. By Richard John Neuhaus. NewYork: Doubleday, . pages. ..

■ The subtitle of this volume is “The Challenge to the ChristianCapitalist.” For the reader who doesn’t give a hoot about whoRichard John Neuhaus is, this will suit well. But a different, moresubtle subtitle for the reader who knows, or rather thinks heknows, who the author is might be “Why I Am Now a RomanCatholic, and Why You Should Be As Well.” And that makes this avery provocative book for the Lutheran reader, especially for onewho is a Lutheran pastor.

Not that this is a book of personal testimony. In fact, there is init not a hint of Neuhaus’s Lutheran past. References to Lutheransare made from a distance, and even when speaking briefly of hisseventeen years as parish pastor at St. John the Evangelist inBrooklyn, Neuhaus omits the significant detail that he was thewhole time a Lutheran pastor of a Lutheran parish. Unless oneknew something of the author, one would never guess that thisbook was written by someone who just two years previously wasediting a partisan Lutheran publication. The entire book reads asone from the pen of a lifelong, obedient son of Rome.

But all this is a good thing, and makes Doing Well just thatmuch more useful for any reader, whether Roman Catholic orLutheran, whether believer in Christ or not. For finally this book isabout humanity, authority, and why the reader — any reader —should listen to Pope John Paul II, to wit: he is a very smart manwho knows a thing or two about humanity and authority.

Doing Well and Doing Good is Neuhaus’s commentary on andinterpretation of Centesimus Annus (Hundredth Year), JohnPaul’s encyclical marking the centenary of another encyclical,Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (New Things). The latter documentwas a stern warning to the world to reject the socialistic tenden-cies that were swiftly moving from the realm of idea to the arenaof practice; the former warns with equal sternness that the pass-ing of socialism does not ipso facto vindicate any existing struc-ture of politics and economics (read “capitalism as it is generallypracticed”), but rather presents an opportunity to set in place atruly just and inclusive form of political and economic democ-racy that respects and uplifts the greatest resource of all: human-ity. Neuhaus, in this book, takes the brief statements of John Pauland unpacks them with startling clarity and ease. The familiaritywith which Neuhaus engages the pope perhaps discloses an

R“It is not many books that make men learned . . . but it is a good book frequently read.”

Martin Luther

j

important reason for Neuhaus’s move to Rome — in John Paulthere is one who speaks with an invitation to conversation anddisciplined thought.

Part One recounts briefly the postwar history of politics, eco-nomics, and culture that culminated in the crushing but seem-ingly whisper-like overthrow of Marxism. John Paul (the formerKarol Wojtyla, archbishop of Krakow in Poland until — bornunder, raised in, but never broken by the thumb of communism’sbrutality) speaks pungently but without a hint of gloating aboutthe events of :

The events of are a warning to those who, in the nameof political realism, wish to banish law and morality fromthe political arena. Only by trust in the Lord of history isman able to accomplish the miracle of peace and to discernthe often narrow path between the cowardice that gives in toevil and the violence that, under the illusion of fighting evil,only makes it worse. [We can see] that not only is it ethicallywrong to disregard human nature, which is made for free-dom, but in practice it is impossible to do so (¶, ).

But John Paul by no means sees consumeristic capitalism asthe ready replacement for the broken machinery of Marxism:

the consumer society [seeks] to defeat Marxism on the levelof pure materialism by showing how a free-market societycan [better satisfy] material needs. Insofar as [such a soci-ety] denies morality, law, culture, and religion, it agrees withMarxism by reducing man to the sphere of economics andthe satisfaction of material needs (¶, ).

Here is a man Richard John Neuhaus can talk with, and does:

Socialism did present itself, in the words of John Paul, assuch a “simple and radical” solution. It was powerfullyattractive to the utopian impulse in the human heart, animpulse that has hardly been extinguished by virtue of theRevolution of . . . Christianity, however, is the oppositeof utopian; it is eschatological. Faith is fixed on that whichGod will do, according to his promise in Christ. Utopi-anism, says John Paul, turns politics into a “secular religion.”“By presuming to anticipate judgment here and now, manputs himself in the place of God and sets himself against thepatience of God” ().

position of a religious institution, or to confessional docu-ments of the Reformation era. The appeal, it is asserted, is tothe Great Tradition of the Church through time, centered inGod’s self-revelation in Christ according to the apostolic wit-ness. The magisterium understands itself to be not the masterbut the servant of the Great Tradition ().

This ringing defense of papal authority is not used explicitlyin this book as a call to Catholicism (though surely that isimplicit), but rather as a foundation upon which to say, “Listento what this man, this pope, has to say about morality and mar-ketplace; he is not, and has not been, a fringe player in all thesethings.” Does it follow that Neuhaus would say, “Listen to whatany pope has to say about these things?” More on this below. Forthe purposes of this book, Richard John Neuhaus, who hasbecome so prominent in the effort to keep religion within thepublic square, wants the reader to believe that the papal magis-terium can rightly include social teaching, addressed to the pub-lic at large, within its sphere of activity:

In Centesimus, the Pope is not only developing the Church’sdoctrine, he is also developing the very idea of social doc-trine. He notes that with Rerum Novarum something newwas started. Leo XIII created a “lasting paradigm” for whatJohn Paul calls “social teaching” or “social magisterium” inwhich the Church “formulates a genuine doctrine” inresponse to social problems ().

Neuhaus notes the usual objections to this notion — these arefields in which the church has no competence; politics and reli-gion do not mix; religion should not provide cover for a partisanagenda. But he proposes now as a Catholic, as he proposed inone way or another all the years he was a Lutheran, that thegospel intends to make the church, the company of theredeemed, terribly interested in the way things are in theworld — that is, that the gospel is, but is not merely “personal”;it is also very “social”:

When the Church seems to be against the world, it is onlyagainst the world for the world. When the Church criticizesthe way of humanity, it is not because humanity is being “alltoo human” but because it is not being human enough. TheChurch understands itself to be not something apart fromhumanity but the part of humanity that has found theauthentically human way in Christ ().

So the church, through the way of Christ, must speak to the waythe world is going along, because the world is the place where theobjects of God’s love are: “‘As such, [the gospel] proclaims God andhis mystery of salvation in Christ to every human being and forthat reason reveals man to himself. In this light, and only in thislight, does it concern itself with everything else’— such as econom-ics, family, the duties of the state, war and peace and respect forlife” (¶, , emphasis added). “Social teaching is derived fromChristian anthropology, which is a ‘chapter of theology.’ How weare to conduct ourselves in the world . . . ‘belongs to the field oftheology and particularly of moral theology’” (¶, ).

Likewise, in John Paul II Neuhaus has found a man of magisterialauthority with whom he can banter: “Wags in the Vatican havebeen heard to observe that the last Marxist in the world will be anAmerican nun in Latin America. Those who say that have proba-bly never been to Harvard” ().

Part Two is Neuhaus’s exhortation to his reader to think withand banter with the pope as the self-evident head of the church,though he suspects that this will be a difficult thing for nearlyeveryone: “Among Catholics and non-Catholics alike, there istoday widespread puzzlement about teaching authority in theChurch, and especially about papal teaching authority” ().Neuhaus proceeds then to assist his reader in engaging the papalutterances:

A papal encyclical carries more weight of authority than apastoral letter or apostolic exhortation, but not as muchweight as, say, an apostolic constitution. Encyclicals areintended to be taken seriously by anyone who takes the Popeseriously. . . . An encyclical is by no means an “infallible”pronouncement ().

“[T]his Pope, more than his predecessors, has employedencyclicals not so much to set forth authoritative teaching as toinvite reflection” (). But the reader, particularly one of theCatholic Church, cannot presume simply to disagree with thepope and choose his own course and own truth, for the truth inthe Catholic tradition is associated with the papacy: “The teachingauthority of pope and bishops is understood to be ordered in con-tinuity with, and accountability to, the apostolic tradition” ().

Non-Catholics, especially Lutherans, cannot seize upon thislast statement and accuse Neuhaus of embracing the antichrist. Itis not, as Neuhaus points out, as simple as all that:

Despite the absence of an effective teaching authority, mostProtestant churches have retained a remarkably large mea-sure of what is historically defined as orthodox Christianity.In theory decisions are made by a democratic process thattries to accommodate private judgments, each appealing toscriptural authority. In reality most churches draw upon thereservoir of tradition even when they insist that they rejectthe authority of tradition ().

And so there is for Neuhaus in the Roman communion theability to know the full range of freedom, right out to its limits,and to be in conversation with the ones who delineate the bound-aries of that freedom — the pope and the bishops, speakingthrough the apostolic tradition:

It strikes both Catholics and non-Catholics as odd when it isclaimed that there is more authentic freedom in the CatholicChurch than in communions organized along more democ-ratic lines. Yet that is the claim frequently made by Protes-tants who have become Catholics. There is more freedom,they say, because, as John Paul also repeatedly insists in Cen-tesimus, “freedom is ordered to truth.” There is authenticfreedom for deliberation and debate because the appeal is tomore than private judgment, or to the politically determined

Having made the point that the church must speak to the situ-ations of public life precisely because it is the church, Neuhausspends the remainder of this book interpreting John Paul’s admo-nitions to the whole of humanity in the wake of Marxism’s col-lapse. He does the job well. If the reader is inclined to cynical pre-judgments that assume all Catholic pronouncements to be post-Vatican II propaganda, Neuhaus will make the reader read again.Centesimus has been interpreted by Marxists as Marxist, by prim-itive capitalists as a pro-capitalist call-to-arms, and by somepoliticians and columnists as gross meddling. Neuhaus begs todiffer, and relentlessly rubs the reader’s nose in the encyclical’stext to make his point.

John Paul’s vision of a better economic order is a capitalismthat purposefully attends to the people from which it draws itslife, a capitalism that understands itself to be under a moralrequirement to provide as many people as possible with real hopefor a secure future. Neuhaus tells why the pope, and Centesimus,even dare to think such an order can be imagined:

That goal presupposes a number of understandings abouthuman beings and the way they behave. The Pope rejects aHobbesian world view in which it is assumed that society isa war of all against all. This vision of humanity as homolupus, as little better than a wolf, defies both Christiananthropology and our experience of the human potentialfor collaboration, he says ().

In place of Hobbes, the pope proposes a “creative subjectivityof the citizen,” an ordering of every institution to the good of thepersons to whom it must understand itself to be in service. Thisview proposes a capitalism that exists not as something thatmight lift up the life of the people, but instead exists as some-thing intending so to lift the people — a capitalism that seesprofit precisely as the means for creating social goods, and not asa goal itself apart from a contingent potential to advance or cre-ate those goods.

Can this be done, and if it can be done, will it be done? Doesthis moment in history contain the seeds of a new economicorder that sees no zero-sums, and that sees the creation of wealthnecessarily married to its distribution? This is an enormousquestion, so difficult to answer when, for example, nearly all thetoys I buy for my children are made in unknown factories inChina, but are distributed by a company in Arkansas. To whomam I to speak if I want those producers and distributors to act inconcert, as if human beings and their welfare are the mostimportant things in the production of toys? How does one com-municate with a market of players which actually girdles theglobe for the production and distribution of something as rou-tine as MagnaDoodles?

But the pope seems to think it is worth a try to so speak:

It would appear that the free market is the most efficientinstrument for utilizing resources and effectively respond-ing to needs. But there are many human needs which findno place on the market. It is a strict duty of justice andtruth not to allow fundamental human needs to remainunsatisfied. It is also necessary to help needy people acquire

expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to developtheir skills to make the best use of their capacities andresources. Prior to the logic of a fair exchange of goods,there exists something that is due to man because he isman, by reason of his lofty dignity (¶, ).

Richard Neuhaus believes that now is precisely the time tospeak, when the old regimes and regimens of economics aremomentarily reassessing, looking at themselves, and questioningtheir gathered inertia. The violent underclasses cannot beignored, the poorest countries will not go away, and the pool ofcheap labor cannot shift forever from one continent to the next.People must sooner or later be seen not as the raw material ofeconomics, but as the intended beneficiaries of economics.Humane economics, he suggests, are something we have to strivefor, not according to Rockefeller or Lenin, not according to AdamSmith or Karl Marx, but as John Paul directs. Lazarus, after all,was not commended for being poor, but Dives was condemnedfor keeping him poor.

This is a very good book for several reasons. First, John Paul IIhas some very good things to say in his encyclical. It is thoroughlypastoral, not theologically polemic, and sincerely tendered to theworld from one who has love for that world and concern for itscondition. The worth of the encyclical is drawn out well by JohnPaul’s new American interpreter. Second, by this book we areassured that Richard Neuhaus did not leave Lutheranism in ahuff. He is now where he has wanted to be, in a church (or as hewould say, The Church) where he is really happy, and it’s hightime that Richard Neuhaus was happy in a church. Third, this isthe best treatment of the notion of ecclesiastical authority that weLutherans are going to be able to read for some time. We Luther-ans are quickly approaching the moment when we will have tofish or cut bait on the issue of magisterium, and Doing Well andDoing Good gives us, in the moments remaining, some searchingquestions to answer — such as: Who is it, after all, who tells mewhether I am orthodox or not? Who speaks such that I hear theapostles speaking? Just who is it, with Bible in hand, who normsme on the issues upon which the Confessions have no word?Who leads me to the correct exegetical conclusion and its con-temporary application?

Richard Neuhaus has his answer — the pope — and arejoinder —“Who does these things for you?” Ask that ques-tion in your next winkel and see if there are even two identicalanswers. Again, the subtitle of this book could well be “Why IAm Now a Roman Catholic (because in this church I knowwho I must listen to, and who will listen to me), and Why YouShould Be As Well (because you don’t have that in yourchurch!).” One might disagree with the road Neuhaus chose toget what he wanted, but one cannot deny that he has foundwhat he wanted. And one also cannot deny that he was not get-ting, nor was he likely to get, what he wanted in any house ofAmerican Lutheranism.

In a recent editorial, an ELCA editor of our local newspapersuggested that Lutherans could use a pope, someone who couldcommand the attention of the whole church when he spoke,someone who had to be reckoned with because of his office in thechurch. What Lutheran leader, he wrote, taking a hike in the Rock-

ies, would find , teenagers walking along with him by theirown choice? It might be a good thing, he continued, if Lutheranshad to sit still and think with someone like a pope.

Because of the particular comments this editorial elicited inour parish, I had to remind the members in writing that popes,at least Roman popes, are not the answer, because they stillhave the explicit power to bind consciences and withhold for-giveness in arbitrary ways. I had to trot out the anti-papaltruths of the Confessions.

But at the same time, I could not fully answer the editor’s com-plaint. Truly, the members of our parish are accountable to me,their pastor. They are to listen to me, they are to talk to me — notonly about matters beyond the grave, but also all sorts of matterson this side of the grave. I am the magisterium in their midst.“But,” they could fairly ask, “who is your magister, Pastor? Whoensures the quality and the integrity of your magisterium amongus?” Good question, but only if one has an answer to it. RichardJohn Neuhaus the Lutheran got tired, it seems, of drawing ablank, and went to a place where there is an answer.

At least for now. Neuhaus likes John Paul — a lot. But JohnPaul is ten years older than Richard John. His recent health prob-lems notwithstanding, Richard Neuhaus has a good chance ofbeing forced to “talk with” the next pope. We can only hope thatwill be as bracing for Neuhaus as has been his conversation, up tonow, with John Paul II.

Neuhaus, who of course checked none of his savvy and wit atthe door of Rome, knows this and admits it: “We are attentive[to the pope] not, or not first of all, because of our respect forthe person and office of the pope, but because of our devotionto the church that he serves. Of course it helps considerablywhen the pope is as impressive a teacher as is John Paul II”(). A certain Augustinian friar once uttered something likethat in a hall at Leipzig, and got Exsurge domine for his trouble.For Richard Neuhaus’s sake, we must pray that neither this popenor the next reads Leo X as closely as he reads Leo XIII.

Andrew W. DimitThe Lutheran Church of Christ the King

Duluth, Minnesota

Biblical Interpretation: The Only Right Way. By David Kuske.Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, .

■ David Kuske’s new book on hermeneutics, or biblical interpre-tation, was a pleasure to read, not because he advances and pur-sues startling new theories about the Bible and its interpretation,but because he offers the reader a clear and winsome résumé ofthe old and established Lutheran approach to Scripture and inter-pretation of it. Such an approach is welcome when Lutheran pas-tors and laymen are faced with so many diverse approaches to theBible today: demythologization, existential interpretation, the“new hermeneutic,” modernism, post-modernism, and, ofcourse, the historical-critical method. Professor Kuske prettymuch ignores all these new ways of reading Scripture and pre-sents to the reader the Lutheran presuppositions for interpretingScripture: divine origin, authority, inerrancy, clarity, and christo-

centricity, as well as the basic hermeneutical rules for reading theScriptures: the meaning of words, syntax, genre, figures of speech,types, application, and more.

The book also commends itself to pastors and laymen by offer-ing a helpful discussion on the matters of canonicity, textual criti-cism and transmission, as well as a brief history of exegesis. Onewishes that Professor Kuske had offered a more detailed history ofLutheran hermeneutics, since he identifies squarely with the exe-gesis of Luther and the Lutheran Confessions. Professor Kuske’sbrief synopses of demythologization, the historical-criticalmethod, and “gospel reductionism” will prove very helpful to theLutheran pastor and laymen.

Since the book is written principally for both pastors andlaymen and not for the academician, it will be very useful to awide range of readers and can be used in all kinds of settings.The reviewer heartily recommends this book to pastors andlaymen alike.

Robert Preus †

Commentary on Song of Songs. By John F. Brug. Milwaukee:Northwestern Publishing House, . Hardcover. pages. ..

■ Over the years, Northwestern Publishing House has providedthe church with several Bible commentaries intended for parishpastors and seminary use (in addition to the People’s Bible com-mentary series for lay Christians). These include expositions of Isa-iah – by August Pieper, Ephesians by Irwin Habeck, and Reve-lation by Siegbert Becker. Now joining these fine volumes is Com-mentary on Song of Songs by Professor John Brug, who appears tobe the most prolific writer among the current Old Testamentexegetes at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon. Like theother NPH commentaries, this one is printed in a format that iseasy on the eyes, with sections of the text in the original languagefollowed by exegetical notes and theological exposition, bound in asturdy hard cover, all at a modest price.

Professor Brug both begins and concludes his commentary byobserving that the Song of Songs is the most difficult book of theBible to interpret. The present reviewer, and probably most pas-tors who have preached and taught the Song, will concur. Prof.Brug outlines four possible hermeneutical approaches to theSong, involving two fundamental questions: first, is the Songabout God and man, or about man and woman? And second, ineither case, is the Song a description of real historical persons, ora literary creation about values and ideals?

Regarding the first question, which Prof. Brug rightly identifiesas the most important, his position is that the Song is about boththe relationship between God and his people and the relationshipbetween man and woman. He argues convincingly that in the years of interpretation by the church, the false exaltation ofcelibacy and asceticism led to the dominance of the allegoricalinterpretation at the expense of including a natural, humandimension. The proper interpretation does not reject either thedivine or the human dimension, but instead includes both inproper balance. Passages such as Ezekiel and , Psalm ,Proverbs –, and Ephesians suggest that the love of Yahweh forIsrael and of Christ for the church is the “original point of refer-

ence” of the Song (), and also is the “model” () and “the pat-tern for human love” (). Viewing this dynamic from the otherdirection, “the Song declares that human sexual love is good” andthat it is “a type of divine love” (), although Prof. Brug is quickto add that “even the best marriages are poor copies of a perfectoriginal, Christ’s love for his bride” ().

Unless one is familiar with recent commentaries on the Song,the reader may not appreciate how rare this Christological per-spective is in current scholarship. Recent conservative Reformedcommentaries have minimized the love of Christ for his bride,the church, as a part of the Song’s message, and instead haveemphasized the relationship between believing husband and wife.Liberal critical commentaries range from overtly pagan (MarvinPope’s cultic funerary interpretation in the Anchor Bible) to femi-nist and liberation views. In the best recent commentary, RomanCatholic scholar Roland Murphy (The Song of Songs, Hermeneia[Minneapolis: Fortress, ]) refers to the church’s older inter-pretations sympathetically, but does not advocate a Christologicalinterpretation for modern readers. In contrast to the dismal col-lection of recent studies, Prof. Brug’s work sparkles with the clearlight of the gospel.

The present reviewer, who admittedly holds many pointedopinions about the Song, is in close agreement with Prof. Brug’sgeneral approach as well as his exegetical treatments of individualverses. The valuable insights throughout the book are too numer-ous to mention here.

The only hermeneutical issue that this reviewer might resolvein a different way is the question of the Song’s historical charac-ter. Prof. Brug’s position is that “the characters in the Song areliterary characters” () and “the events are ideal events, not realincidents in the life of Solomon” (). The reason he adopts thisview is that the polygamous Solomon “does not provide a verysuitable model for either ideal marriage or the love of God forhis people” ().

Solomon’s polygamy does indeed present a major problem fora Christological interpretation of the Song. Several possibleavenues could deal with it without compromising the Song’s his-torical reference. The Song itself mentions Solomon’s polygamyin :, but immediately follows it by portraying Solomon assingly devoted to his only true love, the one Shulammite (:).That does not excuse polygamy, but it does show that the Songexalts the marriage of one wife to one husband who, at least inhis heart of hearts, is “forsaking all others” (the marriageliturgy). A second possible avenue is suggested by Delitzsch (inthe Keil-Delitzsch series, –), who implies that the reasonSolomon is in awe and afraid of his bride (:–, ) is that he isashamed of his own polygamy (:), which contrasts with herfaithfulness and purity. Delitzsch admits that Solomon’s sin“brings a cloud over the typical representation” (), butreminds the reader that unlike the sinless Christ, the humantypes of Christ in Scripture are always imperfect. “In the Song,the bride is purer than the bridegroom; but in the fulfilling of theSong . . . the bridegroom [Christ] is purer than the bride [thechurch]” (). Prof. Brug himself suggests a third possibility(–): the harem mentioned in : may belong not toSolomon, who would remain monogamous, but to anotherman, so that even here Solomon may continue to represent

Christ, and “the comparison of the woman to the heavenly bod-ies [in :] reminds us of the similar description of the churchin Revelation ” ().

This reviewer agrees with Prof. Brug that the Son is indeed apoetic melody of divine love that sparks human love too (Song:). We would stress, though, that this love becomes incarnate inhistory. God’s love for man began in Eden (Genesis –), then afterthe fall into sin was manifest in Yahweh’s redemption of Israel, andculminated in the salvation won for all mankind by the incarnateChrist on the cross. By God’s grace his divine love in Christ isreflected, imitated, and in a sense “incarnated”— imperfectly, tobe sure — in the marriage of Solomon and the Shulammite, andin Christian marriages today (Ephesians ). The historical charac-ter of salvation and the incarnational nature of divine love wouldbe affirmed in an interpretation that considers the Song to be areal description of historical persons and events — even as theincarnate Christ was a real historical person, and husbands andwives in Christ are too. Prof. Brug, however, can and does marshalbiblical parallels to the Song that contain literary characters, mostnotably Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly in Proverbs –, as well asJesus’ parables, so his approach is in harmony with the hermeneu-tics of other portions of Scripture.

The confessional Lutheran tradition contains plenty of room toaccommodate various ways of handling these kinds of exegeticalissues. In fact, the Lutheran interpreters on the Song differ widely.Luther himself attacked the idea that the Song is only about histor-ical Solomon and a daughter of Pharaoh, and not about Christand the church (AE : ). Most of Luther’s lectures on the Songcompared the history of Solomon’s government to the conditionof God’s people (church and state!) under the theology of thecross. Delitzsch, like Luther, condemned the allegorical hermeneu-tic. Delitzsch’s most valuable work on the Song was his first expo-sition of it: Das Hohelied untersucht und ausgelegt (Leipzig: Dörf-fling und Franke, ), especially the chapter “Das Mysterium desHohenlieds” (–). Unfortunately this book is quite rare, andmuch of its material was not included in Delitzsch’s second Songcommentary (), which was the one translated into English inthe Keil-Delitzsch series. Also unfortunate is that in his book,Delitzsch (, , –) criticized the Song interpretations ofLuther and Keil. Two years later, Hengstenberg, in his Song com-mentary, Das Hohelied Salomonis ausgelegt (Berlin: LudwigDehmigke, ), related the Song to Christ and the church bymeans of the “allegorische” hermeneutic without worrying aboutan original historical context, as also Karl F. Keil did later in Man-ual of Historico-Critical Introduction (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark,, –). Hengstenberg (v) sharply criticized the basichermeneutical view of Delitzsch’s Song commentary, prompt-ing Delitzsch to return fire in his Song commentary (Keil-Delitzsch series, ).

These disagreements among champions of Lutheran orthodoxyshow just how perplexing the Song is. While it is difficult to speak ofa firm consensus among conservative Lutheran commentators onthe Song, all of the above works are Christological, and thereforeradically different from most contemporary treatments. Prof. Brug’scommentary too is solidly Christological and well within theLutheran mainstream. He also avoids some of the more tenuousinterpretations one can find in the other Lutheran works.

In summary, Prof. Brug is to be thanked for his hard work onthis most challenging book of Holy Scripture. His commentaryundoubtedly will encourage many pastors to preach and teachthe Song even though it never appears in the Lutheran lectionary.Commentary on Song of Songs provides an ample supply of philo-logical helps that encourage the ambitious pastor to workthrough the Hebrew. The theological exposition wrestles with thetough interpretive issues and often mentions different possibili-ties and the views of others before offering a balanced conclusion.Above all else, this commentary proclaims the gospel of JesusChrist from the text. Commentaries like this do not come alongvery often, so you had better add it to your library!

Christopher W. MitchellConcordia Seminary

St. Louis, Missouri

The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back. By Peter Jones. Phillipsburg,Pennsylvania: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing House,. pages.

■ The Empire Strikes Back — the second installment in the StarWars trilogy — is a particularly somber movie. The originalmovie ended with the defeat of the evil empire, yet the sequelreveals that the victory celebration was premature. The empirewas merely in hiding, waiting for the appropriate moment tostrike back at the rebels with a vengeance.

As the title of the book under review suggests, author PeterJones seeks to show that what we call the New Age movement isnot new but in reality a re-emergence of an ancientreligion/heresy called Gnosticism. Although it was seeminglydefeated in the fourth century, the author argues that Gnosticismhas been revived and is now the root of a stronger, more danger-ous threat against the Christian faith.

Ancient Gnosticism, according to the author, was a “kaleido-scopic mixture of many varied traditions.” The gnostic writingsthat have been preserved for us, especially the library discoveredin near Nag Hammadi, bear this out. In spite of a seemingwide diversity, these writings show an underlying doctrinal unityamong the gnostic groups. Jones provides a clear summary of thecore gnostic beliefs and reveals for the reader how Gnosticismpresents a worldview and plan of salvation that are opposed tothe Christian faith.

At the center of the gnostic religion is the belief that within all(or some) people resides a spark of the true God, who is not theCreator God revealed in the Old Testament. The goal is thatthese divine sparks be returned to the true God. This can onlybe done by the possession of certain secret knowledge. The Cre-ator God of the Bible is rejected because he keeps the peopleignorant of their having this divine spark. The serpent, whotempts Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, is viewed as thetrue Christ. Jesus’ death is viewed as a sham perpetuating theignorance. Of this diabolical religion Jones says, “Christbecomes a symbol of every gnostic believer, and redemption isthe fruit of one’s own efforts to gain transforming knowledgethat one is God” ().

Jones next analyzes the slippery eel called the New Age. TheNew Age appears to be a jumble of unrelated groups and move-ments. The author peers beneath the surface of such movementsas homosexual rights, militant feminism, political correctness,nature worship, and the sexual revolution. He reveals an underly-ing unity and ideological coherence that is fundamentally anti-Christian in spirit and goal. In this unity and coherence Jones dis-covers the gnostic foundation for the New Age.

As with Gnosticism, the New Age worldview has no room forthe Creator God of the Bible; there is the goddess-savior Gaia.Jesus is no longer God incarnate but is viewed as merely a recep-tacle for the Christ consciousness. Salvation is effected by discov-ering oneself to be God, that is, by seeking the female naturewithin. The author’s great lament is that this religion is being pro-moted and accepted within Christian churches. Even someLutheran publishing houses are printing and distributing bookspromoting New Age beliefs.

The author points out that the New Age does have some differ-ences from Gnosticism. Jones writes: “In its planetary vision andone-world philosophy the New Age has gone far beyond Gnosti-cism. Mark Satin’s vision of the New Age society . . . is muchmore extensive and programmatic than anything the Gnosticswrote” (). Yet in spite of the differences one finds oneself agree-ing with the author that the New Age reflects the beliefs andworldview held by the ancient gnostics.

As a matter of fact, one need not know about Gnosticism inorder to discern the dangers of the New Age. This book, how-ever, provides a valuable insight into this “reincarnated” enemyof the church. The author freely admits that his work was notwritten to provide a complete understanding of the New Age, yetit is a good starting point for someone wishing to explore thistopic in more depth.

Throughout this work the reader can sense the author’surgency in revealing the true nature of the New Age. His goal isto warn the church so that she may prepare herself for battleagainst this ancient enemy retooled for the twenty-first century.Other Christian books on the New Age often leave the readerwith a sense of despair. Jones, on the other hand, keeps a verypositive mood throughout. His message is one of warning, yethis hope and prayer is that like the church fathers before us wewill “[use] the weapons of faith, particularly the sword of God’sWord, by which pagan Gnosticism was once already put toflight, and by which it will be put to flight again” (x).

Daryl D. GehlbachPrince of Peace Lutheran Church for the Deaf

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Gnosticism and the New Testament. By Pheme Perkins. Min-neapolis: Fortress Press. pages. ..

■ “Since the publication of the full corpus of gnostic writingsfrom the discovery at Nag Hammadi, scholarly work on Gnosti-cism has been a growth industry,” writes Pheme Perkins in thepreface to her book under review. The popularization by ElainePagels in The Gnostic Gospels (), as well as New Age fascina-

tion with this ancient religion, has fueled a seemingly endlessstream of books, articles, and symposia on Gnosticism.

Much has been written about Gnosticism over the past twenty-five years, but not since Robert McL. Wilson’s work Gnosis andthe New Testament () has any writer undertaken the monu-mental task of summarizing current scholarly thought on thissubject. The past quarter century of intense study and debate hasfostered the need for such a summary work, a need that Perkinsintends to fill. Her goal is not only to report the findings and con-clusions of recent scholarship, but do it in a way that, accordingto her, “frames new questions for future research” (x).

As with any book of this nature, the reader must keep in mindthat Perkins is only presenting one area of gnostic research.Scholarly opinion regarding Gnosticism is not as unified as onemight infer from Perkins’s book. There are other schools ofthought, some of which merit serious attention on the part ofscholars. Perkins is not attempting to cover the full spectrum.(Such an attempt would require many more books.) By keeping itnarrowly focused, the author is able to present a concise overviewof majority opinion with regard to Gnosticism.

The general framework of her book clusters topics into threeareas of study. The first is an examination of the arguments infavor of the existence of a non-Christian Gnosticism. The secondconcerns itself with a comparison of the similar themes andimages found in the New Testament and gnostic writings. Theconcluding section discusses some of the differences and conflictsthat exist between orthodox Christian and gnostic practices. Thisstructure is one of the main strengths of this book, allowing thescholar quick access to topics of a personal interest.

The extensive bibliography compiled by the author is an addi-tional strength. From the plethora of books and articles on Gnos-ticism Perkins provides a representative sampling of scholarlyworks on the subject. This bibliography will benefit both thecasual and serious student of Gnosticism.

A third strength of Perkins’s book is that she provides insightinto the foundations of modern gnostic scholarship. It is not thepurpose of her book to explore those foundations, yet the readeris made aware of the higher-critical underpinnings of currentresearch into Gnosticism (for instance, late dating of the NewTestament, identifying the Gospel of Thomas with Q, the NewTestament being a product of the community not of divine reve-lation). The reader should not be surprised that much of moderngnostic research is antithetical to orthodox Christianity.

This book is for the scholar, not merely a casual reader. This isnot an introduction; the reader must approach this book withsome previous knowledge of Gnosticism. For the scholar whowishes to be informed of the latest in critical gnostic research,Perkins’s book is a good addition to the library.

Daryl D. Gehlbach

The Land and the Book: An Introduction to the World of theBible. By Charles R. Page II and Carl A. Volz. Nashville: Abing-don Press, . pages plus index.

■ This well-organized volume is an excellent preparatory guidefor anyone planning to travel to the Holy Land (Palestine, Egypt,

and Syria). It can serve equally well as a resource for the faithfulreader of the Scriptures who has a desire to learn more about thepeoples of Bible times and the lands in which they lived. The bookis divided into three major sections. Part presents an overview ofthe geography and general history of the region as a whole. Part comprises the major portion of the book (–), introducing thereader to various biblical sites of Israel (outside of Jerusalem), thenJerusalem itself, as well as Jordan and a number of other sites,including some that have no reference in the Scriptures. Alsoincluded is a fine description of Qumran, where the Dead SeaScrolls were discovered. Photographs, maps, and diagrams arejudiciously used to illustrate the descriptions of the various sites.

The third and final portion of the volume is really an appendixof brief subjects, including Archeological Method, ChronologicalCharts, Glossary of Terms, Notes, and Suggestions for FurtherReading. This is followed by a complete topical index, designed tomake this book a handy reference tool.

Charles R. Page II is Academic Dean of the Jerusalem Centerfor Biblical Studies in Israel. Carl A. Volz is Professor of ChurchHistory at Northwestern Theological Seminary, St. Paul, Min-nesota. Their work is based on good scholarly research. In mostinstances the authors are careful in their judgments, particularlywith reference to determining whether certain revered sites areauthentic, for example, the exact location in Sinai of the mountwhere God spoke to Moses, or the precise location of the tomb ofKing David, or the Holy Sepulcher. One may not always agreewith some of their conclusions with reference to certain state-ments in Scripture. For example, they state: “nor can one be cer-tain that the story found in Luke is historically reliable” (). Inaddition, for the believer who accepts the inspiration of the wholeScripture as the Word of God, it is disturbing to find seeminglyneutral statements such as “Jesus is said to have calmed the sea(Mark :–)” (); “where He is said to have healed a Gentilewoman’s daughter” (); “He is reported to have made his entryinto Jerusalem riding on a donkey” (). Yet in other placesthroughout the book the biblical record appears to be acknowl-edged with straightforward acceptance.

Even though the reader will question some of the statementshere and there in the book, by and large it is evident that theauthors of this work, in accord with their purpose, have done anexcellent job of providing scholarly yet lucidly written materialfor enriching the reader’s appreciation for the geographical andhistorical backgrounds of the setting in which the God of theBible revealed himself and his eternal plan of salvation to theinspired writers of the Old and New Testaments and in the full-ness of time through his only begotten Son (Gal :).

Beyond the specific purpose and scope of this particular work,the serious student of the Scriptures would do well to supplementhis/her study with two other works: Horace D. Hummel’s TheWord Becoming Flesh (for the Old Testament) and Martin H.Franzmann’s The Word of the Lord Grows (for the New Testa-ment). But for walking “where the saints have trod” (whether onan actual tour or in one’s easy chair), The Land and the Bookdeserves an accessible place on the shelf for frequent perusal.

Paul M. HeerbothSt. Louis, Missouri

Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St.Bernard. By Dennis Tamburello. Louisville, Kentucky: Westmin-ster/John Knox Press, . Hardcover. pages.

■ This work started out as the author’s doctoral dissertation sub-mitted to the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. It hasnow been reworked and presented as the first title in the ColumbiaSeries in Reformed Theology, a joint project of Columbia Theolog-ical Seminary and Westminster/John Knox Press. The author offersit as a continuation of the trend to examine the relationshipbetween the theology of the leaders of the Reformation to the manylate medieval movements to which they were exposed. Works thatexamine Luther for remnants of and connections to the Germanmystics such as Tauler are relatively numerous. Less common hasbeen the attempt to find strands of “mystic” thought in Calvin.

Because a certain amount of ambiguity inheres in the term“mysticism,” the author turns to the late medieval theologian JeanGerson for a working definition: “Mystical theology is experien-tial knowledge of God attained through the union of spiritualaffection with Him. Through this union the words of the Apostleare fulfilled, ‘He who comes to God is one spirit with Him’.” Theauthor makes several points about this definition that help toestablish the categories for his comparison between Calvin andSt. Bernard. First, Gerson’s union with God is a union of the will;Gerson rejects (as do Calvin and Bernard) all types of essentialunion in which the soul loses itself in the divine being. Second,there is a cognitive component in this type of mysticism. Third,Gerson’s kind of mysticism is not elitist. It is available to all thefaithful, not only the monk. Finally, Gerson insists on the ecclesialcontext for mystical union and the necessity of the sacraments inattaining it. This definition provides the basis for finding a sur-prising amount of common ground between the Cistercian abbotin his monastic setting and the great Genevan theologian.

Dr. Tamburello spends two chapters in providing a backgroundfor his comparison between the mysticism of Bernard and Calvinby establishing some commonality in their understandings ofanthropology and of justification. It is one of the special virtues ofthis work and others like it that it wades through medieval cate-gories such as “merit,” the emphasis on love over faith, or the sub-sumption of sanctification under justification, to establish bridgesbetween Bernard’s thought and that of Calvin. Real differencesremain, of course, such as on the issue of whether the Christian canhave certitude of salvation. But, as the author demonstrates, thereis also real agreement; for both Bernard and Calvin, salvation (andthus also union with Christ) is entirely the work of God.

The terms under which the comparison between Bernard’s andCalvin’s conceptions of mystical union with Christ is carried outare the nature of that union, its scope (whether it is available to allor only to the spiritual aristocrat such as the monk), and the rela-tionship between this mystic union and the theologian’s ecclesiol-ogy. One major difference between the two can be ascribed to thedifferent eras and different theological categories in which theyworked and thought. For Bernard, it is charity that is primary andthat provides the direct basis for union with Christ, while forCalvin, writing as a theologian of the Reformation, faith is para-mount. While the author defends both Bernard and Calvin againstvarious attacks against their versions of the union of wills between

the Christian and God, he must nevertheless admit that there ismerit to the charge of elitism against Bernard, since for the abbot ofClairveaux it is the monastery that provides the ideal context forpromoting the highest type of union to which he aspires. ForCalvin, union with Christ belongs to all Christians.

In comparing the ecclesial dimensions of union with Christ,the author treats also the extent to which Bernard and Calvinconnect their ideas of that union to the sacraments. It came assomething of a surprise to this reviewer to learn that, of the two,it is Calvin who more frequently mentions the sacraments andpromotes them as the sine qua non for attaining to true union ofaffection with God. But it is also in connection with this pointthat the work reveals its most serious deficiency, at least from aLutheran standpoint. As a measure of the connection betweenmystical union and the sacraments, Dr. Tamburello attaches agreat deal of importance to the number of times that Bernard andCalvin mention the two together. He does not, however, pursuethe qualitative difference in eucharistic theology constituted bytheir different understandings concerning what is on the altarafter consecration and what is then eaten and drunk in the sacredmeal. The miracle of the presence of Christ’s body and blood onthe altar is central to Bernard’s understanding of the mass, whilefor Calvin (all the recent attempts to find some kind of “RealPresence” in his doctrine notwithstanding) this is not the case.When Bernard writes about the necessity in this life of being “fedwith the flesh of Christ” he is illustrating his understanding ofChrist’s sacramental presence that exemplifies as well as promotesthe magnum mysterium, the sacrament of the marriage betweenChrist and the church. Thus, while it may be true that he does notcenter his piety on the Eucharist to the extent that later medievalmystics did (and the author cites Bernard McGinn to this effect),nevertheless it also is true that for St. Bernard the mystical uniontakes place in a sacramental context unlike that of Calvin, and thedifference cannot simply be measured in the number of timesthese authors mention the sacraments. The difference betweenBernard’s understanding of the miracle of Christ’s presence in themass and that of Calvin bespeaks differences — in Christologyand the role of the sacrament — that need to be explored. Thisreviewer would have liked to see more analysis of just those “rela-tively infrequent” times mentioned in passing by the author inwhich Bernard refers to the sacraments and a comparison ofthem to the several citations from Calvin.

On the whole, however, there is a great deal in this book tomake it worthwhile reading. Dr. Tamburello’s work is well exe-cuted and thorough. He makes frequent and fair use of hissources to establish his points. One particular benefit for the aver-age Lutheran reader will be the way Calvin is represented, notaccording to the polemical stereotype as a cold systematician, butas a theologian promoting a warm spirituality. Likewise, while itmay require effort to adjust oneself to the medieval categories ofmerit, free choice, and the priority of love over faith, it can beworth it — as, in the opinion of this reviewer, it is in the case ofBernard of Clairveaux— to see the ways in which shared scrip-tural content is expressed in different ways.

Daniel P. MetzgerBethany Lutheran College

Mankato, MN

God and Caesar Revisited. Edited by John R. Stephenson. LutherAcademy Conference Papers No. , . pages. Paper. ..

■ This book is a compilation of papers presented at a congresson the Lutheran Confessions in April .

Ulrich Asendorf surveys “The Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms inModern German Lutheran Theology,” mainly since World War II,devoting the greatest space to Hermann Diem, Gustaf Tornvall,Johannes Heckel, and Ulrich Duchrow, with appropriate repeatedmentions of Gerhard Ebeling and Paul Althaus. These moderninterpretations have proven largely unsuccessful in capturingLuther’s thought on the two kingdoms, Asendorf reports, by mini-mizing it (Diem), under-researching it (Duchrow), or not distin-guishing sufficiently between it and Augustine’s two cities (Heckel).(On the last point, Asendorf shrewdly observes that “there arenearly no quotations from Augustine’s De civitate Dei in [Luther’s]treatment of the kingdoms, whereas he quotes from him exten-sively when dealing with the doctrines of justification and grace”[].) An interesting digression suggests that the Barmen Declara-tion was not as one-sidedly Reformed as Barth and others por-trayed it (–).

In “Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms,” Kenneth Hagenleaves mainly to one side the secondary literature where “All toooften the doctrine is discussed in reference to some issue extrane-ous to Luther” (). Hagen wants to listen to Luther himself. Hefinds the reformer consistent, but in a way more complex thanusually depicted: Luther painted two different and complementarypictures of two kingdoms, and a significant addendum should bemade to each. Hagen proposes that we “think of Luther who livedin both of the horizontal kingdoms: in the visible earthly kingdomas a citizen of Wittenberg and in the invisible heavenly kingdom asa Christian in the company of all the saints and angels. Further-more, Luther was an instrument of God’s left hand as professor,father, and civil judge, and an instrument of God’s right hand aspriest and preacher. Furthermore, Luther’s doctrine of Anfechtungmeant that he was in daily struggle with Satan and his kingdom”(). Hagen adds, from the Zechariah commentary, Luther’s“government of the angels” (). This scheme, while not simple(the terms “vertical” and “horizontal” do not clarify matters, Ifear), does a remarkable job of accounting for the data in Luther’swritings. Hagen’s contribution stands out as significant for thisreason alone. It proceeds from an important methodological prin-ciple: “all of Luther’s theology forms a coherent whole; but to useone distinction as a key to unlock some other theme, I do not findhelpful” (). Of all these papers I applaud Hagen’s most, though Iwonder what it means by a quick reference to “both uses of theGospel, alien and proper” ().

John Johnson offers a “modest background essay” on “Augus-tine, Aquinas, and Ockham: The Two Kingdoms Doctrine inMedieval Theology.” Key points of this survey are summarized inthe conclusion: “the formulation of Augustine is essentially one-dimensional (the fundamental relationship between the spiritualand the temporal) and those of Aquinas and Ockham are, at best,two-dimensional (the question of the relationship betweenchurch and state is, as for Luther, as paradigmatic instance of therelationship of the two kingdoms).” None of the three, however,applied two-kingdoms thinking to “the activity of the individual

Christian” (). Medieval theology did not understand the doc-trine of justification.

Kurt Marquart takes up “The Two Realms (‘Kingdoms’) in theLutheran Confessions” with five penetrating theses: the two-realms distinction is basic Christian (not Jewish or Muslim) teach-ing; it distinguishes “evangelical” from “legal” institutions, notinward and outward elements; gospel, not law, governs thechurch; a “legal-contractual fringe of church life” is in andaccountable to left-hand rule; and the church should make duedistinctions in proclaiming God’s law. Unfortunately, the last andlongest thesis is least-treated. This essay tantalizes most, perhaps,in interpreting the Augsburg Confession, Article V (ConfessioAugustana V) (–). I agree with its exegesis. Yet I wonderwhether the alternative is overdrawn: “If CA V (of the preachingoffice) is not really about that, but about a generic ‘ministry’which really everyone has . . . then our Confessions have in fact norelevant resources for us today” (). An article by Robert Preus,“The Confessions and the Mission of the Church” (Springfielder,June, ), for example, mines many relevant ecclesiologicalresources from the Symbols, although it does not find divine insti-tution of the “gospel office” (Marquart’s term) in CA V.

“Law and Due Process in the Kingdom of the Left and theKingdom of the Right” by Martin Noland vigorously appeals toMissouri Synod people “to restore our church government andits judiciary to its Scriptural and Confessional order” ().Noland’s tour de force calls for () “return [of] legislative powersto the convention, where it [sic] belongs”; () modifying currentpowers to suspend and expel Synod members, as held by districtpresidents and the synodical praesidium; and () revising Synod’sjudicial process bylaws (). Two of the most salient changes pro-posed are that “floor committee members for the following con-vention should be elected by the delegates at each regular conven-tion” () and, in disputed matters, to “permit advisory opinions. . . but . . . retain finality of decision with the Dispute ResolutionPanel hearing the case” (). The essay is under-documented inplaces, for example, composition of various boards as describedin note , page . But it has a contribution to make in a discus-sion that should be important within Missouri Synod circles,though of limited interest elsewhere.

John Stephenson analyzes “The Two Kingdoms Doctrine inthe Reformed Tradition” via a few notable exponents. AbrahamKuyper differentiated law from gospel no more than Karl Barthdid. Both ended up distinguishing “between varying modes ofthe law,” and therefore, they said in effect, “In place of a two-handed rule of God steps the government of one hand, usingnow the thumb and now the little finger” (, ). ModernChristian reconstructionism bears an uncanny resemblance toMartin Bucer’s sixteenth-century De Regno Christi. Stephensonfinds more similarity to Luther in John Calvin’s views than inthose of the foregoing theologians, but even here he indicatestwo notable differences from Luther. First, Calvin thought civilrulers should punish public blasphemy (Luther did too, I mightadd) as well as “defend sound doctrine and the position of thechurch” (quoted on ). Second, Calvin was ultimately moreinterested in distinguishing inward from outward and now fromthen than in dividing law and gospel. The essay closes with aroundabout encouragement for Lutherans to do their appropri-

ate service in the civil sphere, not allowing “law-gospel theology”to become “a caricature of itself” ().

August Suelflow tells two stories of wartime loyalty in America.His article “The Two Kingdom Concept in th and th-centuryLutheranism in America with Special Reference to Muhlenbergand Walther” is a narrative about these two towering figures inAmerican Lutheranism who strove to uphold the “two kingdomdoctrine” during very hard times. Both had “difficulty . . . whenthe states’ rights had not been clarified in America’s history . . .determining who exercised the power of the state” (). ForMuhlenberg, was it the British king or the Continental Congress?For Walther, was it the federal government or the state of Mis-souri? Walther seems to have been more outspoken in expressinghis wartime sympathies than Muhlenberg was, but both pastorscourageously determined to keep their politically divided flockstogether.

The book’s last piece, a banquet speech by Richard Muller,takes a whimsical look at the kingdoms of the left and the rightfrom the standpoint of “metadoxy.”

Ken SchurbManchester, Missouri

Augustine Today. Edited by Richard John Neuhaus. GrandRapids: Eerdmans, . pages. Paper.

■ Augustine Today is the last of sixteen volumes in the EerdmansEncounter Series. These books originated as scholarly papersdelivered at conferences concerned with issues under the generaltheme of religion in American public life.

As American culture is engaged in a kulturkampf, one wouldexpect that Augustine’s The City of God (a guiding text for West-ern Christians grappling with the tension of being in but not ofthe world), would be the central theme of the essays. But not untilone reaches the final essay on justice, love, and peace is thisexpectation met. Although the “religion in public life” theme isnot central to these essays, if one is willing to tackle the sheer den-sity of the arguments, there are many jewels to be mined.

The following reflection on William Babcock’s “Cupiditas andCaritas: The Early Augustine on Love and Fulfillment” serves toaccent one such jewel. According to Babcock, Augustine readilyaccepted antiquity’s fundamental concern for the problem ofhuman happiness. Roughly stated, Augustine’s initial premise wasthat “all persons want to be happy; and no persons are happy whodo not have what they want” (De beata vita :). Of course, theissue is considerably more complex, from the child whose happi-ness is focused on handling fire to the person who mistakenly per-ceives herself to be happy because she has attained the externaltrappings of happiness. Babcock says, “Suddenly, then, the issuesconnected with the question of happiness multiply” ().

Not the least of these connected issues is the problem of fearrooted in the chances and changes effecting life’s fortunes. Insofaras happiness is contingent upon possessing what we want, the real-ity of moths, thieves, and rust means that all possessing is qualifiedand provisional. All happiness derived from possessing the transi-tory is as illusory as it is temporary. And a happiness enslaved tofear is so precarious that it is hardly worthy of the name. Thus

Augustine’s distinction between and discussion of the affection forthe temporary (cupiditas) and affection for the eternal (caritas)provides the verbal resources whereby the pastor is able to make anincisive diagnosis of the problem of human discontentment thatsupports the prognosis for human fulfillment.

The problem is not that we desire happiness or that we derivehappiness from the temporal world. The problem is that the soulhas turned toward transitory objects to satisfy the eternal hunger.This inordinate love of temporary goods (cupiditas) is not merelya problem in theory, it is the root of all sorts of evil, because cupidi-tas carries a “hidden penalty.” Though the inordinate affection ofthe transitory may, for a time, lead one to believe this world is anabiding place of human happiness, the illusion cannot withstandthe hidden penalty of cupiditas. Eventually and inevitably, thehidden penalty will subvert cupiditas-centered happiness with thediminishing returns of transitory pleasure and the slavery to fearexperienced by hearts tethered to the “things that are uncertainand changeable” ().

This is where Augustine’s “hidden penalty” has rich currencyfor our preaching. The “hidden penalty” names one of the modesby which the law always accuses (lex semper accusat). Those whoinordinately love the transitory will never find contentmentbecause the law never rests from the accusation that security cen-tered in “things that are uncertain and changeable” is insecure.Though this observation is unremarkable, it may help us considerwhy too much of our preaching of the law has the force of thread-bare clichés or tired moralism. Granted, the “hidden penalty” ofcupiditas means that the law, regardless of our preaching, willalways accuse, condemn, and subvert every effort to find happi-ness apart from God. Still, it is the task of preaching that we imagi-natively spell out the diminishing returns of illicit pleasure andforcefully assert the slavery to fear, so that the work of the law ispublicly named. The pastoral work that aims to subvert the secu-rity of the secure and prepare the broken to consider the possibil-ity of hope can hardly be content with recitation of platitudes. Inconsidering the depth of Augustine’s theological reflection oncupiditas, it becomes apparent that the work of proclaiming thefailure of cupiditas is an arduous and demanding craft.

The expectation that the lucid discussion of the failure ofcupiditas would carry over into the possibilities of caritas wasmostly dampened by ambiguities too numerous to mention. Thisambiguity was reflected in the conclusion drawn by these recog-nized Augustine scholars, who were quite sure of the importanceof Augustine’s legacy, though uncertain “about what constitutedAugustine’s legacy.” In one unambiguous moment, Babcock,quoting Yeats, warned that without an understanding of caritas asboth the alternative to cupiditas and the fulfillment of what cupid-itas longs for, we might find that among our congregations “thebest lacks all conviction and the worst is full of passionate inten-sity.” The pastor in search of ways of proclaiming the best to acupiditas-saturated culture may do well to return to Augustine.But, given the restraints of time and money, he may also wish tofind other guides who can, with more certainty, lead one inAugustine’s legacy and the importance of that legacy for thechurch today.

David K. WeberDurham England

T L’ MThe following paper was read at a convention of the SouthernIllinois District in by Francis Pieper, who is known to manyof us as the author of the three-volume Christian Dogmatics. He served as seminary professor at Concordia Seminary, St.Louis, from to . He held the position of seminary presi-dent from to , during which time he also served as thepresident of the Missouri Synod from to . This essay wastranslated by J. T. Mueller and published by Concordia Publish-ing House in in a collection entitled What Is Christianity?This excerpt comes from pages –. If any of our readersknows more about the historical context of this “Laymen’s Move-ment,” please write us! Doesn’t this all sound remarkably likeanother men’s movement in our own day?

In the course of the last decade, much has been written onthe so-called Laymen’s Movement within the Protestant de-nominations of America, especially in view of the fact that in there was effected an organization under the name of Lay-men’s Missionary Movement, which aroused wide-spread atten-tion both in the church-papers and in the secular periodicals ofour country.

The object of this movement was to interest the Christian laityof all the church-bodies in a more general and extensive cam-paign for the promulgation of the Gospel throughout all theworld and to gain through their hearty support the enormousfunds necessary to extend the kingdom of Christ all over theearth. During the winters of and , Laymen’s MissionaryConventions were held in seventy-five cities of the United States,and owing to the influence of enthusiastic missionary addresses,huge sums were gathered. A certain Mr. John Kennedy alone

L ForumS S C

contributed ten million dollars toward the cause of Foreign andHome Missions.

How shall we regard this Laymen’s Movement? In our own cir-cles it is quite commonly looked at askance, especially since manyof the representatives of this movement by their speeches betrayedthe fact that they have no inkling whatever of the true nature ofChristianity. As a matter of fact, very often Christianity and educa-tional or cultural progress are practically identified. The task of theChristian Church is said to consist, not in the saving of sinners, butrather in the ethical transformation of the non-Christian world byproper educational training. We have always voiced our dissentfrom this supposed purpose of Christianity, and rightly so.

T W SFor those wondering about outreach to the wider evangelicalcommunity, we offer the following news from Santa Barbara,California:

A group from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (LCMS) inSanta Barbara wanted to create a forum where the teachings ofthe Reformation could be discussed in a setting that did notrequire people to leave their Sunday church home.

The result? The Wittenberg Society, a quarterly Friday nighteducational forum committed to bringing the insights of the six-teenth-century Reformation to the twentieth-century church.

The Society’s inaugural meeting was on November — theth anniversary of Luther’s birth. The meeting was held at GoodShepherd and all expenses were underwritten by that church,including air fare and honorarium for the speaker. As Craig Par-ton, a founding member of the Society, told us, the goals were() to seize the theological high ground, () to be a place whereserious, thinking Christians can come to hear solid, orthodox pre-sentations by experienced speakers, and () to associate GoodShepherd with goals and . Here is Parton’s report:

Since all the founding members of the Society have intimateexperience with non-denominational Bible churches, we arepainfully aware of the resistance that many have to entering a Lutheran church. Thus we had a non-Lutheran speaker addressa very controversial topic that all churches are struggling with —contemporary Christian music and seeker-sensitive worship.Even though the title (“Seeker Sensitive Worship and The Loss ofTheological Literacy”) would have tipped off people to where we

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were coming from, over one hundred people from over tenchurches attended. It was very clear that just about all Protestantchurches are in a world of hurt over this topic.

The speaker was Dr. Leonard Payton, Director of Music at aPresbyterian church in northern California. Dr. Payton broughtsolid evangelical credentials (he studied at John MacArthur’sMaster’s College) along with a Master of Arts and Doctorate inmusic from the University of Southern California and the Uni-versity of California at San Diego. Dr. Payton’s articles in Mod-ern Reformation Magazine on contemporary Christian musichave generated national debate. For a non-Lutheran, Dr. Paytonis impressively familiar with the Divine Service (I first met himat the Real Life Worship Conference in San Mateo, California,in April of ), with TLH and LW, as well as with confessionalLutheran orthodoxy as represented in the Book of Concord.

The lecture (complete with Dr. Payton’s hilarious paralleling of the musical style of John Wimber’s “Spirit Song” with NeilDiamond’s “Sweet Caroline”) and questioning went almost twoand one half hours. The audience included a number of West-mont College faculty (a major private evangelical liberal arts col-lege in town) and students.

The content of the lecture powerfully, yet implicitly, supportedthe Christ-centeredness of the Divine Service and Lutheranhymnody. In honor of Luther’s birthday, we made available theSmall Catechism as well as a cassette recording of Luther’s cate-chetical hymns sung by a children’s choir and made available by the Concordia Catechetical Academy in Sussex, Wisconsin(Rev. Peter Bender, PO Box , Sussex WI -).

The next speaker for The Wittenberg Society is Dr. Rod Rosen-bladt, professor of theology and apologetics at Concordia Univer-sity in Irvine, California. Dr. Rosenbladt will speak on “The Lossof the Evangel in Evangelicalism.” While Dr. Payton addressedwhat is going on in the choir loft, Dr. Rosenbladt will address thefoul status of law and gospel preaching in American pulpits.

Good Shepherd has now put the Wittenberg Society in itsevangelism budget, thanks to the encouragement and support of pastor Jim Johnson. Those interested in discussing this conceptfurther can call Craig Parton at () - or write him at Langlo Terrace in Santa Barbara, CA .

P H CThe October issue of Concord featured this piece by the editor,Rev. Glenn Huebel. Those interested in making a freewill donationto subscribe to this newsletter may write: Concord, PO Box ,Keller, TX .

On the question of who is to be admitted to the Lord’s Supper,Pieper gives the following instructions to pastors and congrega-tions (Christian Dogmatics, : ):

On the one hand, they are not permitted to introduce “opencommunion”; on the other hand, they must guard againstdenying the Sacrament to those Christians for whom Christappointed it.

This quote has appeared in various periodicals, both officialand unofficial, and was also read to the Synodical Conven-tion. In almost every case it is quoted by someone who wishes to “loosen” the present synodical policy, which requires that wecommune only those members of Lutheran churches that are infellowship with the Missouri Synod (except in special cases ofpastoral care). In other words, Pieper has become the [unwitting]champion of those who advocate what they call “close” asopposed to “closed” communion. Those who stress this sup-posed distinction are simply ignorant of our historical practiceand the historical use of these terms. The terms are, in fact, syn-onyms, as the CTCR itself declared in (see Theology andPractice of the Lord’s Supper, ).

Did Pieper really sanction and teach a communion practice thatallowed fellowship at the altar apart from agreement in the doc-trine taught and confessed? Those who are at all familiar with thewriting of Pieper know that this cannot be. In fact the above quoteis being used out of context when it lends credence to the idea thatwe may commune all believers or all those who believe in the realpresence regardless of their denominational affiliation. . . .

After stating the general principle above, Pieper goes on toexplain himself. He affirms that the Lord’s Supper is intendedonly for Christians, but not for all Christians. Only thoseChristians who have been baptized, who are able to examinethemselves, believe the Real Presence of Christ’s body andblood, and have removed any public offense are to be admittedto the table (: –). He then makes one more importantstipulation, one that is extremely relevant for our discussionstoday. He writes:

Furthermore, since Christians are forbidden to adhere toteachers who deviate from the Apostolic doctrine(Romans :, “Avoid them”), it is self evident that mem-bers of heterodox churches must have severed their con-nection with the heterodox body and have declared theiracceptance of the true doctrine before they may communewith the congregation.

It should be obvious that Pieper was definitely not one to allow tothe table anyone who could agree to three or four points in avaguely-worded communion statement, nor was he one who waslikely to commune “Aunt Sally” who was a practicing Methodistor Roman Catholic. According to the above quote, Pieper wouldnot even have communed someone who privately confessed allpoints of Lutheran doctrine if he refused to sever his membershipin a heterodox church. Pieper is not the friend of those who wantto lower the standards of admission to the Lutheran altar.

What, then, does Pieper mean by his warning not to deny theSacrament to those for whom Christ appointed it? Pieper speaksof Christians who misunderstand “worthiness” to be a specialdegree of sanctity and faith (). He is concerned that Chris-tians understand that the Sacrament is a gospel invitation to sin-ners. Though Pieper endorsed the concept of communion regis-tration and interview with the pastor (), he was concernedthat the pastor not be too rigorous with his flock so that he turnaway from the table poor, sinful sheep who needed the sacra-ment. He writes:

Both pastor and congregation must most carefully guardagainst denying the Lord’s Supper to anyone to whomChrist wants it to be given. In his day Luther had to warnnot only against laxity in practice, but also against legalismand unnecessary rigor. He writes to Balth Thuering inKoburg: “I have written the pastor not to torture the igno-rant with long examinations when they announce for Com-munion, but also not to refrain entirely from exploring andexamining them.”

Thus we can see that Pieper’s concern is that the Sacramentnot be denied to a pastor’s own members because of rigorousexamination practices. Does anyone today really think that therigorous examination of members is a significant problem in oursynod? Are there congregations left that still require members toregister for communion? We should use Pieper together with allthe other orthodox theological giants of our history, but let’squote them in context!

Glenn HuebelMessiah Lutheran Church

Keller, Texas

R P e LOn September , , the Rev. William R. Kilps presented a paperon theology and liturgy at the Workshop for Pastors and ChurchMusicians held at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Springfield, IL.Included below are some samples of that presentation, the full textof which can be acquired by contacting Rev. Kilps, HubbardRd., East Moline, IL . The author wishes to acknowledge withthankfulness Dr. Arthur Just’s initial exposition on the matter ofpresence as it pertains to worship.

The topic of theology (the study of God) as it impacts uponliturgy (the place where God offers his word and sacraments) is,most basically, an issue of presence— specifically, God’s presencewith us. How we view the presence of God directly impacts uponhow the divine service is approached.

In Lutheran circles, we describe this presence of God as being a “real presence.” It is not an ethereal presence as if God is far up in heaven and we’re way down here. Nor is his a generic pres-ence in the liturgy, as we might casually speak about God beingwith us wherever we go — whether we are in the car, beside thelake, or at the ball game. Rather, in the liturgy God’s presence is a concrete one. In fact, we can be so specific as to say that theLord is present there with us according to His fleshly, bodilymode, what our Lutheran Confessions refer to as the corporealmode of his presence (cf. Tappert, :). It is impossible to talkabout Christ being present with us without acknowledging hisincarnate, fleshly being.

The counterpart to this is, of course, held by those of theReformed persuasion. They can speak of Christ’s “real” presenceany way they care to. On the one hand, there is the Savior who“walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am Hisown,” “In the Garden” (wherever that is). On the other hand,

there is the Christ who, according to their mistranslation of Acts:, must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to re-store everything (Note the NIV translation of this verse as well as Tappert, :). That “Christ,” they argue, cannot be presenthere among us corporeally, and is most certainly not to be foundin the meal of the Holy Eucharist.

On that intangible level, the issue of presence has a profoundimpact upon the way in which Reformed worship is conducted. It is a style that I would like to refer to as the “parade approach.”In a parade, the celebrity who sits atop the float is admired from a distance. The observer of that parade is just one of the crowd. As such, he may conduct himself with relative anonymity. But ifthat same individual is granted a personal audience with thecelebrity, then the ground rules change dramatically. Suddenly,one is keenly aware of his own demeanor, conduct, words, ges-tures, and even appearance. There are certain things one does anddoes not do when one is actually in the presence of greatness, asopposed to simply gawking at that greatness from afar.

If God is only “watching us from a distance” (as the renownedtheologian Bette Midler intoned), then one can relax a little. Onecan approach worship in a more casual manner, because there is asafe buffer between God and the worshiper — a buffer created notby the cross of Christ, but by the indefinable expanse that sepa-rates the heavenly realm from the earthly one. In which case, theworshiper is accountable only to those other worshipers whoseexistence qualifies as the “real presence.”

A great deal, then, is riding upon the strength of the gathering.Is everyone doing his or her part? Are emotions being stirred? Is the enthusiasm catching? When God is not immediately pre-sent, it becomes necessary to rely upon those who are a bit closerto the action — those who have been blessed with extraordinarytalents in leadership, music, and the like — to convey the spirit tothose who are watching from the outer reaches. And one canonly hope to be caught up in the excitement or, as some havecalled it, “the worship experience.”

William R. KilpsZion Lutheran Church

East Moline, Illinois

N-BIf you haven’t been introduced to the writings of Eugene Peterson,here is a good sample of his work with which you should be pleasedto make his acquaintance. It comes from pages – of his

John Knox Press publication entitled Five Smooth Stones for Pas-toral Work. L readers are certain to enjoy his writings eventhough we recognize the occasional Protestant overtures of worshipas something we do for God and prayer as a means of grace.

Pastors are subjected to two recurrent phrases from the peopleto whom they give spiritual leadership. Both are reminiscent ofBaalism, enough so as to earn the label “neo-Baalism.” Thephrases are: “Let’s have a worship experience” and “I don’t getanything out of it.”

The phrase “let’s have a worship experience” is Baalism’s sub-stitute for “let us worship God.” The difference is between culti-vating something that makes sense to an individual and actingin response to what makes sense to God. In a “worship experi-ence,” a person sees something which excites interest and triesto put religious wrappings around it. A person experiencessomething in the realm of dependency, anxiety, love, and a con-nection is made with the ultimate. Worship is a movementfrom what a person sees (or experiences or hears) to prayer orcelebration or discussion in a religious atmosphere. Subjectivityis encouraged.

The other phrase of “neo-Baalism” is “I don’t get anything outof it.” When it refers to participation in the Christian communityit is accepted as a serious criticism and a valid excuse from fur-ther engagement in something which personal experience testi-fies is irrelevant and uninteresting.

The assumption that supposedly validates the phrase is thatworship must be attractive and personally gratifying. But that issimply Baalism redivivus [renewed; reincarnated], worshiptrimmed to the emotional and spiritual specifications of theworshiper. The divine will which declares something beyond orother than what is already a part of the emotional-mental con-struct of the worshiper is spurned. That worship might call forsomething beyond us is shrugged off as obscurantist.

And so the one indispensable presupposition of Christianworship, the God of the covenant who reveals himself in hisword, is deleted. A Freudian pleasure principle is substitutedand worship is misused to harness God to human require-ments. Worship is falsified into being a protective cover forself-seeking. That the self-seeking is in the area of the psychicrather than the sexual does little to improve the results over oldBaalism. We may be entertained, warmed, diverted, or excitedin such worship; we will probably not be changed — and wewill not be saved. Our feelings may be sensitized and our plea-sures expanded, but our morals will be dulled and our Godfantasized.

T R WLuther’s last sermon was preached on February , . He beginsby saying of the text, Matthew :–, “This is a fine Gospel and it has a lot in it. Let us talk about part of it now, covering as muchas we can and as God gives us grace.” Translated by John W. Dober-stein, this sermon is found in volume of the American Edition of Luther’s Works, the portion below coming from pages –.The German text is found in WA : –.

To the world it is very foolish and offensive that God shouldbe opposed to the wise and condemn them, when, after all, wehave the idea that God could not reign if he did not have wiseand understanding people to help him. But the meaning of thesaying is this: the wise and understanding in the world so con-trive things that God cannot be favorable and good to them.For they are always exerting themselves; they want to do thingsin the Christian church the way they want to themselves.

Everything that God does they must improve so that there isno poorer, more insignificant and despised disciple on earththan God; he must be everybody’s pupil, everyone wants to behis teacher and preceptor. This may be seen in all heretics fromthe beginning of the world, in Arius and Pelagius, and now inour time the Anabaptists and antisacramentarians, and all fanat-ics and rebels; they are not satisfied with what God has done andinstituted, they cannot let things be as they were ordained to be.They think they have to do something too, in order that theymay be a bit better than other people and able to boast: This iswhat I have done. What God has done is too poor and insignifi-cant, even childish and foolish; I must add something to it. Thisis the nature of the shameful wisdom of the world, especially inthe Christian church, where one bishop and one pastor hacksand snaps at another and one obstructs and shoves the other, as we have seen at all times in the government of the church toits great detriment. These are the real wiseacres, of whom Christis speaking here, who put the cart before the horse and will notstay on the road which God himself has shown us, but alwayshave to have and do something special in order that people maysay: Ah, our pastor or preacher is nothing; there’s the real man!He’ll get things done!

But is this behavior not a disgusting thing, and should notGod grow impatient with it? Should he be so greatly pleased withthese fellows who are all too smart and wise for him and arealways wanting to send him back to school? As it says later in thesame chapter, “Wisdom must be justified by her own children”[Lk :]. Things are in a fine state, indeed, when the egg wants to be wiser than the hen. A fine governance it must be when thechildren want to rule their father and mother and the fools andsimpletons [want to rule] the wise people. You see, this is the rea-son why the wise and understanding are condemned everywherein the Scriptures.

T G I’ FOur Lord concludes the parable of the workers in the vineyardwith the words “The last will be first and the first will be last.”Those who had borne the burden and the heat of the day grum-bled. They were perturbed. Their hopes had been heightenedwhen at first they saw the johnny-come-latelies getting paid a fullday’s wage. They thought that they would in turn get more thanwas promised to them. They didn’t mind the landowner beinggenerous to the others if only he would be commensurately moregenerous to them.

Could the point of this parable be that the gospel isn’t fair?Perhaps one could venture to say that the gospel can’t be fair. If the gospel were fair, it wouldn’t be gospel.

Consider the following example: a father has several children.He loves each of them very much. One day, he gives a quarter tothe second oldest — not because he is playing favorites, butsimply because the occasion arose to be gracious in this way.

Now suppose that the other children get wind of it. What islikely to be their reaction? They will want to be treated “fairly.”They will feel that their father practically owes each of them

a quarter. They may plead their case before their father withbegging, stomping, crying. If they thus manage to get a quar-ter, it is for an entirely different reason from that given for thesecond oldest.

If something is owed in order to establish equality or fairness,then it no longer bears the qualities of “giftedness.” The gospel isnot bestowed in terms of equality or fairness. It is not given froma Lord who is an arbitration expert, trying to determine whatwould be fair among rancorous degenerates. He is not bound bylaw to heal every leper or perform the same number of miraclesin every city.

Fairness comes under the rubric of the law. Fairness reasonsthat it ought to have an equality with everyone else, even if it hasto be established with quotas or affirmative action. In its idealisticsense, communism was meant to be a very fair political and eco-nomic solution to the cares of the world, eradicating inequalityby stamping out class distinctions. The lust for equality in termsof race, gender, and economics, however, is insatiable. Themolten magma of discontent will continually boil and bubblebeneath the crust, with occasional outbursts of sulfuric gas andthe overflow of red-hot rock taffy. And wasn’t it C. S. Lewis whodescribed hell as the place where the denizens suffered theanguish of growing infinitely more angry with God, whose judg-ment they did not consider fair?

The gospel lives in an altogether different dimension. Fairnesscan see the gospel about as well as one looking for daisies througha welder’s mask. Not so with repentance. It sees the gospel assomething beyond equality, something better than fairness. It seesgrace. It sees the one who would be first being the servant of all. Itfinds its life where first becomes last and last becomes first — inthe one who is first and last, beginning and end, author and fin-isher, Alpha and Omega. He is the one who did not think equalitywith God as something to be grasped. Those who have this giftgraciously, live in spite of fairness.

JAB

A S W e NC. F. W. Walther addressed the first Iowa District Convention atSt. Paul’s Church in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, beginning on August ,. His essay, “Duties of an Evangelical Lutheran Synod,” is emi-nently practical and is translated for us in CPH’s publicationEssays for the Church. This citation is found in volume , pages–. The specific translator for this piece was not named, thoughthe introduction by Dr. August Suelflow lists the following namesas translators for the work: Herbert Richter, Fred Kramer, AlexGuebert, Robert Smith, Laurence White, Jim Ware, Reinhold Stall-mann, and Everette W. Meier, who is said to have translated half ofthe essays. Call CPH to obtain your copies before they run out!

There are many pastors in America who form a “union” ofsorts so they can play the “game” of synod. They may be rene-gades from the discipline of a legitimate synod, are usuallypoorly educated, know nothing about the doctrine of the

church whose name they bear, may have no preparation for theoffice of the ministry at all, are filled with errors of every kind,may also be conscienceless people who carry on “ministry” likeany other trade, just in order to earn their daily bread and live a comfortable life.

When they come into an area, especially one that has no synod,they think, “This is nice; we’ll form our own ‘synod’ here.” Sothen they accept as members any Tom, Dick, or Harry who hap-pens to come along so that they can play “synod.”

They all want to be “president,” and so they elect a large num-ber of vice-presidents so that everyone holds an office, a title, adignity. They have no doctrinal studies of any kind because theirheads are empty and therefore they can’t produce anythingworthwhile. Neither do they have any interest in doctrine. Theyspend their time on “business,” how they should proceed inproper parliamentary fashion. They appeal repeatedly for“proper procedure” in bringing matters up for consideration bythe “right reverend synod” or the “venerable ministerium.” Andso they refer the matter from Caiaphas to Annas, etc. It is trulyhair-raising and shocking to read the history of how certain“synods” came into being. The way they operate is nothing lessthan scandalous!

In contrast to that, a synod worthy of the name must above allelse be formed so that the gifts which are distributed to the vari-ous servants of Christ may be best utilized for the benefit of all.And here again the number one priority must be the promotionof a better understanding of God’s Word. And even if a synodproceeds in a free and easy manner, with no particular organizedprocedure, it is still a glorious synod so long as there is an inten-sive study of God’s Word. The Lord is in the midst of His synod-ical members. For there we are gathered in His name and thereHis Word is taught in childlike faith. . . .

It is truly a sad situation when a synod has virtually nothingbut “business items” on its convention agenda. Luther has a com-ment on this point when he says:

It is a sin and a shame that Christendom should here andthere be subjected to such an abominable pretense whichimplies that the Holy Spirit omitted many important doc-trines which must now be revealed and taught by councilsthat rarely deal with matters of doctrine, with the exceptionof the first councils, which on the basis of Scripturedefended the foremost articles on the divinity of Christ andthe Holy Spirit against heretics. [Now councils propose]things that are nothing more than man-made arrangementsand laws. (Church Postil, Second Sermon on the Gospel forthe Holy Festival of Pentecost, XI, f.)

Luther’s complaint is “that the councils have rarely dealtwith doctrine.” That he calls a “sin and a shame.” Here inAmerica we also use the arrangement of a synod [or council]to carry on the business of the church. God forbid that we everget to the point where we merely put on a big show and thenhave a convention in which we discuss all sorts of peripheralpiffle about ceremonies, rules, and insignificant trifles [arm-selige Lappalien]. Instead of that, may we always concentrate onthe study of doctrine.

R MAlso found in another portion of the above-cited essay is this com-ment by Walther regarding the reading of pastors and laypersons inhis day (op.cit., –). Here he makes reference to Der Lutheraner,a periodical he began editing in and that subsequently ranuninterrupted for years until the lack of a German readershipforced its discontinuation in . It was influential in putting con-fessional Lutherans in touch with one another and helping to pavethe way for the Missouri Synod in .

In addition to [good books, hymnals, catechisms, and read-ers]— especially at the present time when all the sects are, with-out exception, publishing magazines, by means of which theyenter their homes on a weekly or biweekly basis to teach their peo-ple — it is essential that the church which has the one true faithalso make use of these means. We are living in a time of “readingmania.” For the most part, however, this reading-craze is beingmet with magazines that promote wicked partisan politics, poisonthe mind with wretched novels, and on top of that also slanderChrist and His church, pastors, and congregations.

That is what people are reading, whereas they should be satis-fying their craving to read with instructional material for every-one whom God has blessed with the urge to read. Then peoplewould be informed about what is happening in the kingdom ofGod, as well as what is happening in other churches. And it is notenough that we have just any old kind of “church magazine.” Weneed a publication that promotes the true faith. For example, theMethodist Apologete presents news about every conceivable kindof church activity and event. Unfortunately, they present every-thing in the light of their perverted Enthusiasm. Much lessshould a true Christian read a papistic publication! For then theAntichrist himself enters the home with his devilish smut. Inplace of that a Lutheran should be reading a good, doctrinallypure publication. . . .

One thing more. During our discussion of the first thesis, wespoke a great deal about the Confessions. The Book of Concordshould be in every Lutheran home. For that reason, Synodshould provide a good, inexpensive copy, and pastors should seeto it that every home has one because, “What I’m not told, leavesme cold.” If a person isn’t familiar with this book, he’ll think,“That old book is just for pastors. I don’t have to preach. Afterplowing all day, I can’t sit down and study in the evening. If Iread my morning and evening devotions, that’s enough.” No, thatis not enough! The Lord doesn’t want us to remain children whoare blown to and fro by every wind of doctrine; instead of that,He wants us to grow in knowledge so that we can teach others,contradict heretics, in short, become “capable of doing the workof the office through which the body of Christ will be edified andbuilt up” (Eph :–).

When a pastor first arrives in a new congregation, one of thefirst questions he should ask in the course of his visits with themembers is this, “Dear friends, what kind of religious books do you have?” They may have only a Bible, a hymnal, and a cate-chism. Then you ask, “What kind of Bible do you have?” Theymay answer, “Say, that’s a good question; where is it anyway?”They may have to dig it out of a junk-room and blow the dust offit, since no one has used it for who knows how long. Then the

pastor should say, “My, it sure it dusty! You know, it doesn’t doany good just lying around, or using it only when you have a bad headache or something! You need to read it regularly. But inaddition to that, you really need to get some more books. Youdon’t just eat bread all the time, do you? No doubt you have allkinds of good food and drink in your kitchen, cellar, and thepantry (Gewölbe). Why, then, would just one kind of food beenough for the soul?” You see, when our body needs something,we can readily feel that. The Holy Spirit has to create that feelingof need and hunger for different kinds of spiritual food. . . .

What we’ve said about recommending good books naturallyalso applies to magazines. In new congregations there fre-quently isn’t any widespread appreciation as yet for good maga-zines. This despite the fact that through our Lutheraner manycongregations have been gathered together and established.Therefore a pastor should not allow himself to be deterred fromshowing the people this and similar periodicals and from read-ing excerpts from them.

O P R SWhat follows may hardly be mistaken for scholarly, substantial, oreven serious criticism of an article that appeared in ConcordiaJournal, October (–) dealing with the topic of who mayread the Scriptures publicly in the Divine Service. Readers who suf-fer this editorial indulgently may be encouraged (or provoked) topen something more profound.

Daniel Fienen’s article “Lay Readers in Public Worship”attempted to do some exploratory surgery in the bowels of thechurch body called the LCMS. Sharp pains indicating a distendedcolon aroused the patient. Assumptions were made prior to thefirst incision, however, that served to cloud an accurate diagnosisand to inflate the costs of spiritual health care.

Case in point. In the opening paragraph, Fienen’s use of wordslike “involvement” and “participation” appear to be benign, butin fact they are malignant. Before one even slips on the CTCRlatex gloves or before an exegetical scalpel is slapped into thepalm, one ought to have considered what is behind such terms.Don’t “involvement” and “participation” seem to be significantterms worth investigating — like checking the patient’s medicalhistory for allergic reactions or pre-existent conditions?

Fienen does not appear to use “involvement” and “participa-tion” in the Gottesdienst sense of a repentant heart receiving theLord’s gifts through his gracious means, echoing back in psalms,corporate hymns, and ecumenical creeds what the Lord has firstproclaimed to us and done for us. Wasn’t that all the “involve-ment” the faithful considered in previous centuries of the Christ-ian church? They simply wanted to be given to according to thewords of the Lord. Such a posture was not one of laziness, but ofbrokenhearted contrition.

Fienen clearly has something else in mind when he introducesthese terms, something unique that certain individuals can do inthe presence of the whole congregation during the course of a

“worship service” (such as the public reading of Scripture). Fur-thermore, implicitly construed is the idea that if you aren’t doingone of these “special” things, then you aren’t “involved” quite asmuch as someone who is doing those things — and if you aren’treally involved in the way that you would prefer to be, then youare being inhibited. Worship is seen as something one is doingtowards God or for the congregation. If one can’t serve with thekind of involvement desired for oneself, then one’s worship ispainfully restricted. There is no outlet for one’s spiritual zeal.That is what Fienen is diagnosing as the distention and blockagein the church’s splavgcna.

Thus it could be understood from Fienen’s felicitous pre-surgi-cal ambidexterity that individual members could come to churchand “participate in this fashion” only if they wanted to get putinto the schedule to do so from time to time. This is the kind ofinvolvement that appears to be “growing” in our church. Any-body standing in the way of involvement is impeding “growth.”Fienen never stopped to consider whether such “growth” is infact a rapidly metastasizing cancer.

Fienen likewise treats the symptom rather than the diseasewhen he calls for the exercise of great sensitivity and care lest weoffend those who may have disparate views on “involvement” and“participation” (). Giving offense these days is as serious aninfection as prohibiting involvement.

The treatment? An ex opere operato view of the Word: “theefficacy of the Word rests on the power of the Holy Spirit, notwho reads it.” Fienen could have saved a lot of work if he hadsimply prescribed this take-two-aspirin-and-call-me-in-the-morning approach to theology in the first place. Perhaps this is a free sample of the medical advice we will hear in the future:“the efficacy of the Word and the Sacraments rests on the HolySpirit, not on the man or woman who preaches or adminis-ters”—which brings us back to what really is ailing us. Is there a doctor in the house? JAB

Y M B M-G I . . .David Letterman popularized “Top Ten” lists. Another comedian,Jeff Foxworthy, is known for the humor reflected in his material,“You may be a redneck if . . . .” In this day of pan-meta-ism, it wasonly a matter of time before someone would pragmatically adapt,synthesize, and “Lutheranize” these two different approaches. Rev.Dale Dumperth of Indianapolis showed his genius in conceiving sucha list, which was in turn “tweeked” by your Forum editor, and voilà!

Pastor, you may be a meta-growther if:• On a Sunday morning you discover that you forgot to put the

altar back in the sanctuary after you took it out to make roomfor the rock band in your Saturday evening service. (10)

• You think that Nestle-Aland is the new food conglomeratethat produces and distributes chocolate Quik. (9)

• During the processional, the banner-bearer accidentallyknocks down the overhead screen used to display yourhymns. ()

• You can immediately locate a citation in Carl F. George’s Pre-pare Your Church for the Future, but say, “Martin Chemnitz?Yeah, I’ve heard of him. He teaches at Fuller, doesn’t he?” ()

• After the Lord’s Supper, the service comes to a halt while youtry to find the guitar pick that you just dropped as you werestrapping on your guitar. ()

• Your praise leader accidentally hits the pre-set cha-charhythm button on the drum synthesizer while you are walk-ing from the lectern to the pulpit . . . and the congregationspontaneously breaks into a bunny-hop line, which lastsuninterrupted for thirty-three minutes. ()

• Another pastor asks to borrow your copy of Bauer, Arndt,and Gingrich, and you respond, “Sorry, I threw out my onlycopy of ‘The Contract with America’ months ago.” ()

• You can’t remember which cell group borrowed the church’sonly coffee maker and you desperately need it within thehour for your Male-Survivors-of-Mid-Life-Crisis-Aerobics-and-Supper-Club Bible Study. ()

• You think that “Amazing Grace” sounds much more livelyand praiseworthy when sung to the tune of the Gilligan’sIsland theme song. ()

• You spend more time broadcasting a vision than sowing theseed. ()

T C O HR IA Sermon on Easter, Christus Victor, and the Theology of the Crossby the Rev. Rick Stuckwisch, April , Immanuel LutheranChurch, Decatur, IN.

There is nothing quite so glorious for a Christian as the bril-liance of Easter. I will never forget walking into the sanctuary onHoly Saturday to review with my pastor the liturgy of theEaster Vigil. The shimmering brilliance of the white paramentswas startling in contrast to the utter and bitter simplicity of GoodFriday. The fragrance of Easter lilies swept over me in waves, sothat it will always be for me the smell of Easter and the resurrec-tion of our Lord. And later that evening, as the Vigil progressedfrom darkness into light, from flickering candles to the bright-ness of a fully lighted church, all of my senses were enveloped bythe life and vitality of the great Feast of Easter.

Certainly, as we gather on Easter morning — very early in themorning, on the first day of the week — we cannot help but mar-vel at the brilliance of the day. We are surrounded by the good-ness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who has risen from thedead just as he said, who has risen indeed. Our hearts and lips cryout for joy; they join with all creation in praising him who hasdone such marvelous things, who has triumphed over death andthe grave, who has trampled Satan underfoot, and who has wonthe victory for us! The victory of life.

And yet, in spite of the brilliance of Easter, the reality of suf-fering and death continues to press upon us from all sides. Whoof us can forget for very long the grief and pain that each of usmust face, practically on a daily basis? I always get nervous

when everything is going too well for too long at a time; invari-ably, it will prove to be the proverbial “calm before the storm.”The white paraments of Easter, the powerful Easter anthems,and even the beautiful Easter lilies — all too quickly, they giveway to the cold, white walls of intensive care, the hymns offuneral after funeral, and the flowers that we leave at the grave-sides of our loved ones.

Perhaps you have seen the movie Shadowlands, a portrait of C.S. Lewis and his struggle with grief at the loss of his wife to can-cer. In A Grief Observed, the book that Lewis wrote following thedeath of his wife, he wrestles with the doubts that plague hismind: How could God allow this to happen? What could suchintense suffering mean? Is there any point to life and death, or isit just a cruel experiment, the hoax of a tyrant far removed fromthe struggle of mortality?

It is a struggle that none of us can escape, for in the words of Luther’s hymn, “In the very midst of life, death has us sur-rounded.” Even the brilliance of Easter and the joy of the resur-rection cannot erase the painful realities of mortal life. Thecurse of Adam continues to haunt us: Ashes to ashes, dust todust. We cannot hide from death; there’s no pretending wedon’t suffer.

Where then is the answer to suffering? Why does the life thatwe live — and the death that all of us must die — stand in suchcontrast to the brilliance of Easter?

We will never know the answer to that troubling, difficultquestion, until we learn to look at Easter from the perspective of Good Friday. We cannot leave the crucifixion behind, asthough the blood, sweat, and tears of the passion were now to be forgotten. Oh yes, the sacrifice is finished, the payment iscomplete. But we dare not be ashamed of the cross. We are notpermitted to breathe a sigh of relief that Lent is finally over; ifthat ever truly was the case, then Easter would hold nocomfort — not for us at any rate. We live our lives from start tofinish in the shadowlands: the lands of Lent, the shadow of thecross. If we run with Peter and John to the tomb and find itempty, it still remains a tomb.

Mark it well, our Lord was buried: “crucified, dead, andburied.” The Son of God was dead. The disciples had every reasonto look for a body — the crucifixion was no joke. His pain wasreal. His death was real. His grave was just as real as the graves thatyou and I will enter. The one who rose on Easter morning rosefrom the dead. He rose precisely as the one who was crucified.There alone is the answer to our suffering. Those who sleep in thedust of the earth will awake, because the Son of God made Hisbed in that very same dust of the earth.

In the earliest days of the church, Good Friday and Easter werecelebrated as a single service — a Christian Passover: the passagethrough death into life. We observe much the same in the EasterVigil, in which the death of Christ and his resurrection arebrought together, as they should be, even as they are united inour baptism. For the washing of water with the word is a partici-pation in the death of Christ, whereby we also share His resurrec-tion and his life.

We must learn from the Easter Vigil and from our baptism torecognize and celebrate Easter as the victory of Good Friday, thevictory of the cross and crucifixion of Christ, the victory of his

death . . . by which death and Satan were defeated. Easter is notthe contradiction or reversal of Good Friday; it is the confirma-tion of the cross. It demonstrates to all the world that when thejaws of death laid hold of Christ, they were destroyed; when Satanbruised the heal of the woman’s seed, the son of Mary crushed hisvile head. Calvary was not a minor setback on the way to victory;it is the victory.

The one who rose triumphant on Easter is and remains thecrucified one. He reveals himself to the twelve by showing themhis wounds. His hands and side are marked by scars. In theApocalypse of Saint John, He is the Lamb upon the throne as onewho had been slain.

What then does all this mean for us as we encounter sufferingin this life?

First of all, our suffering is sanctified and hallowed by the suf-fering of God himself. In fact, for Luther, suffering and the crossare a mark of the church and of the Christian life, since God hasrevealed himself to us most clearly in the suffering and cross ofChrist. Do we ask why God allows us to suffer? Then we mustalso ask, how is it that he crucified his Son? He took our sufferingupon himself; He bore it in his body on the cross. Like Saint Paul,we therefore give thanks to God if we are counted worthy toshare the sufferings of his Son.

But what is more, as Christ has suffered for us, and has borneall manner of grief and sorrow and temptation in our place, soalso does he now suffer with us. In those times of deepest suffer-ing, when God seems farthest away, he is nearest of all to us. He isthere in such a way that suffering produces not despair butendurance, endurance produces hope, and hope does not disap-point us. We do not suffer for ourselves, but for him —and withhim— who for our sake died and was raised.

Saint Paul writes in Colossians that our life is hid with Christin God because we have died with Christ in our baptism; butmore important still, Christ has died with us. He took our fleshand blood to be his own, that he might by his death destroy thepower that death had over us. He died as one of us that we mightrise with him. His death on Good Friday was our death. And forthat very reason, Easter is our resurrection.

The resurrection of Christ was not a rising above suffering anddeath, as though our Lord was leaving us poor mortals to grovelin the dust on our own. He is not like the guy who forgets abouthis friends as soon as he gets to the top. He is still the one whobecame man and suffered death. He is still the one who shed thetears of mourning at the death of his friend Lazarus. He is still theone who felt the pains of betrayal and rejection. He is still the onewho was crucified for us.

Thus, in the resurrection of Christ as the crucified one, we seethat our suffering too will have its end in life with God. Foralready in our suffering, we share the life of Christ, who by hisdeath has conquered death and given us the victory. In his deathfor us is the evidence that his resurrection is also our resurrec-tion! If we have died with Christ — or more to the point, if hehas died with us — then we shall live with him as well.

Like Peter and John, we too must celebrate Easter by enteringthe tomb. The linen cloths and bandages we find inside are evi-dence, not only that Christ has risen, but also that he truly wascrucified, dead, and buried. He has risen as the one who died,

who wrapped himself in our suffering and mortality, and whohas therefore risen as one of us — the firstborn from the dead. In his tomb, therefore, we enter life — the life that he has won forus by his death.

It is nothing special for the Son of God to live, since he is lifeitself. But for the Son of God to live as the one who died meanseverything for us. He took our death to be his death, so that hislife might be our life. You and I will shine with the brightness of his righteousness, because he passed through the valley of theshadow of death with us. He lived and died in the shadowlandsof Lent, and as such, the light of his resurrection shines pre-cisely for us and casts its beams across the shadows of our lifeand death.

Thus the brilliance of Easter stands in contrast to the reality ofsuffering and death, not as a contradiction, but as the confirma-tion and confession that though we die, yet shall we live. ForChrist, who has taken not only our flesh and blood but also oursuffering and death upon himself, has in turn bestowed on us hisresurrection and his life. As we feast upon the sacrificial body andblood that hung for us upon the cross, we have indeed the fore-taste of the feast to come. To turn a phrase on its head: In thevery midst of death, life has us surrounded.

Death, where is thy victory? Grave, where is thy sting? Thanksbe to God, who has given us the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ!For the crucified one has risen — he has risen indeed.

Rick StuckwischSouth Bend, Indiana

O L, H M UThe text of this sermon is Habakkuk :–; :–, preached by theReverend Dr. Norman Nagel on Monday of Pentecost . It is a ser-mon that could address the peculiar plea of the father who tearfullycried out to Jesus, “O Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!” for the res-cue of his demon-possessed son (Mk :). And when you are facedwith such English as “utter utterest incredibility,” you mightattribute this to some sort of Hebraistic influence along the order ofan infinitive absolute.

You won’t believe it —“believe” in the secular sense. Youcouldn’t imagine such a thing happening and with you involvedin it. Or behind that: You shut out any thought of that happeningas a defense against the precarious little piece of your space andtime, your life, getting blown away. It’s hard enough trying tohold that little bit of something together and keep it going with-out facing all the things that might happen to you any day thatwould wipe you out.

The message of the prophet Habakkuk is to deliver us out ofthe games we play in our pitiful attempts to protect ourselves andthe little space we hang on to so tenaciously. That’s enough toworry about. It’s too scary to face up to what tomorrow maybring to destroy us.

There’s more than enough out there to destroy you. They hadthe Chaldeans; we have had the bomb. Cold war is over; no more

bomb. “Rational expectations,” irrational expectations. We stillride trains, drive the highway, have tornadoes, earthquakes, killergerms, and random bullets. “Violence.” Habakkuk certainly gotthat right — the lurking devastation you don’t want to thinkabout. You can’t really imagine and don’t want to imagine theoverthrow of everything you’ve piled up to protect yourself with,and won’t believe it even if you are told.

That, however, is only chicken-feed incredibility. What isutterly incredible is that it is the Lord who is using the Chaldeansfor doing his work.

They swept by like the wind and go on;Guilty men, whose own might is their god.

Guilty and godless men, for whom the exercise of power,bending others to their will, is the idolatry of their lives: these theLord has raised up to do his terrifying alien work. “Dread andterrible.” There is no escape. The Lord’s people go under. Howcan he let this happen?

That is not a question we may put if we are just talking aboutGod, and not to him. It is with the Lord we have to do. “The ora-cle of God which Habakkuk the prophet saw” does not ask why,but only “How long?” “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help?”There’s nowhere else whence help or hope may come. Everythingthat might give some help or hope has been wiped out. There isnowhere else to look, but only to the Lord, and he has been act-ing in contradiction of himself.

The utter utterest incredibility is what is given to faith. All ofthe foregoing is the work of almighty God, who is in fact, and incontradiction of all of the evidence we can see, the God who isour Savior. He destroys every idol, every ground of confidencethat would replace him (that will not hold), in order that intothe nothing he has cleared, he may come, and come as nothingbut life-engendering gift. Those thus given to are the faithful;those thus given to are thus the righteous. Their righteousness is as sure as God’s own righteousness, and he cannot quit beingGod. The righteous by faith are in his hands; and so they pray,they pray to him.

Art thou not from everlasting,O L my God, my Holy One?We shall not die.

Though the fig tree does not blossom, nor fruit be on thevines, the produce of the olive fall and the fields yield nofood, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herdin the stalls, yet (i.e., “nevertheless,” waw disjunctive) I willrejoice in the L, I will joy in the God of my salvation.God, the L, is my strength; he makes my feet like hinds’feet, he makes me tread upon my high places.

“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation,their robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb.” “Blessed arethose whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrim-age.” Amen.

Norman NagelConcordia Seminary

St. Louis, Missouri

B M HYour Forum editor uses Luther’s exposition on Psalm (For theChristians at Riga in Livonia, AE : –) as the opening devo-tion for the first session of premarital counseling. What do you use?

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it laborin vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmanstays awake in vain.”

First we must understand that “building the house” does notrefer simply to the construction of walls and roof, rooms andchambers out of wood and stone. It refers rather to everythingthat goes on inside the house which we call “managing thehousehold . . . .” Solomon’s purpose is to describe a Christianmarriage. . . .

Reason and the world think that married life and the makingof a home ought to proceed as they intend. They try to determinethings by their own decisions and actions, as if their work couldtake care of everything. To this Solomon says No! He points usinstead to God, and teaches us with a firm faith to seek andexpect all such things from God. We see this in experience too.Frequently two people will marry who have hardly a shirt to theirname, and yet they support themselves so quietly and well that itis a pleasure to behold. On the other hand, some bring greatwealth into their marriage; yet it slips out of their hands till theycan barely get along.

Again, two people marry out of passionate love; their choiceand desire are realized, yet their days together are not happy.Some are very eager and anxious to have children, but they donot conceive, while others who have given the matter littlethought get a house full of children. Again, some try to run thehouse and its servants smoothly, but it turns out that they havenothing but misfortune. And so it goes in this world; thestrangest things happen.

Who is it that so disrupts marriage and household manage-ment and turns them so strangely topsy-turvy? It is he of whomSolomon says: Unless the Lord keeps the house, household man-agement there is a lost cause. He wishes to buttress this passageand confirm its truth. This is why he permits such situations toarise in this world, as an assault on unbelief, to bring to shamethe arrogance of reason with all works and cleverness, and toconstrain them to believe.

This passage alone should be enough to attract people tomarriage, comfort all who are now married, and sap thestrength of covetousness. Young people are scared away frommarriage when they see how strangely it turns out. They say, “Ittakes a lot to make a home”; or, “You learn a lot living with awoman.” This is because they fail to see who does this, and whyhe does it. And since human ingenuity and strength know norecourse and can provide no help, they hesitate to marry. As aresult, they fall into unchastity if they do not marry, and intocovetousness and worry if they do. But here is the needed conso-lation: Let the Lord build the house and keep it, and do notencroach upon his work. The concern for these matters is his,not yours. For whoever is the head of the house and maintains it should be allowed to bear the burden of care. Does it take a lotto make a house? So what! God is greater than any house. He

who fills heaven and earth will surely also be able to supply ahouse, especially since he takes the responsibility upon himselfand causes it to be sung to his praise.

Why should we think it strange that it takes so much to makea home where God is not the head of the house? Because youdo not see him who is supposed to fill the house, naturallyevery corner must seem empty. But if you look upon him, youwill never notice whether a corner is bare; everything willappear to you to be full, and will indeed be full. And if it is notfull, it is your vision which is at fault, just as it is the blind man’sfault if he fails to see the sun. For him who sees rightly, Godturns the saying around and says not, “It takes a lot to make ahome,” but, “How much a home contributes!” So we see thatthe managing of a household should and must be done infaith — then there will be enough — so that men come toacknowledge that everything depends not on our doing, but on God’s blessing and support.

D Y G Y C L YA novel standard has been established by which we may right-eously judge pastors and congregations. The authority whoestablished this arbitrary and apodictic law has yet to be identi-fied, but he (or she) is often cited for having mandated this singledeclaration: each church must have at least one new adult con-vert every year.

If your church has met its quota of at least one new convertthis year, then you are okay. Reproaches must be softenedagainst you if you have at least gotten one. But if November orDecember rolls around and you haven’t gotten that one convert,you better get moving! Baptized babies of established membersdon’t count. You have to get someone into the congregationfrom outside. It counts if you can simply woo a former Presby-terian, Methodist, or Baptist onto your membership rolls with a forty-five minute instruction class — you don’t have to actuallyconvert anybody from faithless atheism into communicantmembership. Therefore, woe to those churches which are unableto convert a single soul in a year!

Ah, yes. Woe. What heartless and lazy pastors they are who failto gain a single convert while working in the inner city that isfalling into ruin and social upheaval. What horrible pastors theyare who fail to gain a single convert while serving congregationsin areas where the local economy has failed and everyone is mov-ing away. What unconscionable sloths are those missionaries whowork for over a year without a single convert. And we ought todefrock those pastors who fail to gain a single soul merelybecause the congregation to which they have been called is in tur-moil between warring factions or lies broken and bruised fromprevious conflict. Yes, it is meet, right, and salutary that weshould heap shame upon their heads because they fail to meetthe quota of at least one new member per year.

If I could find my Reporter, I would certainly name the heropastor who lamented that the LCMS annual statistics book

would no longer be printed. He chafed at the thought that nowthese irresponsible pastors and congregations exemplified abovewill no longer be identifiable, inhibiting us in our opportunitiesto reproach them with utter degradation. And implicitly, what agreat pity that we will not be able to see what grand successes thissame pastor has had in converting people for his congregation.The synod is certainly deprived now that its statistical yearbookis being discontinued.

Statistics. Are they the result of some kind of census? True sta-tistics mongers know that every census is a good census and havemoved for the redaction of such embarrassing Scriptures as:“Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel” ( Chr :). “Again the anger of the LORD burnedagainst Israel and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go andtake a census of Israel and Judah’” ( Sm :). And if these pas-sages cannot be excised or proven historically dubious, then itmust be declared a foregone conclusion that such things couldnever happen in our dear synod.

So if you know of anyone who has not gotten a single convertyet this year, illustrate how some have turned the Holy Spirit intoa “Conversion God.” That is to say, there are those who treat God

as if he must be appeased by a certain quota of conversions. Thusthey caricature God to be something that he is not, which is idol-atry. If a single convert has not been achieved within a -dayperiod, they are quick to level their condemnations. These are thevery ones who ought to be praying that the God would not letthem live in the Last Days when the great apostasy will occur,when the love of many will grow cold. Oh, how much more diffi-cult it will be in those days to gain a single convert each year, andhow much more likely it will be that one will have to bear thecontempt of one’s peers!

So, shame on the obviously lazy pastors and people who arenot calling, gathering, enlightening, sanctifying, and keeping thewhole Christian Church on earth! Shame on the undeniableslothfulness of those unconscionable pastors and people whohave yet to gain one new member this year! Therefore, let no onefail to buy the last edition of the synod’s statistical year book (foronly .), seek out the advice of those who have established by their growth methodologies a treasury of converts, works ofsupererogation. Then they may be able to get their quota andjoin the faithful throng of success stories — at least until the nextyear when the counters are reset at zero.